Creating right tab with leader consisting of unbroken (mid) line [resend]

[Michael Kerrisk]

Hi Art, Les, and all,

Winfried off list also pointed out to me how the way to use em-dash or
en-dash here.

This solution is nearly good enough, There is one small problem: the
resulting leader does not quite begin at the left margin. I suppose
that this is because a whole number of dashes doesn't exactly fit to
the flow width, so there is a little space left over at the start of
the line. I found a solution for this, but it is not optimal: place a
stretched em-dash at the start of the line (i.e., before the tab that
creates the leader). I say that this is not optimal because it will
require additional manual work, and there are hundreds of cases. Is
there a better way of ensuring that the leader starts flush with the
left margin?

Cheers,

Michael


On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 4:16 PM, Art Campbell <art.campbell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On FM 8, I can set an m-dash as the leading character for a right tab
> by inserting it in text and copy-and-pasting it into the Leading
> character field (or use Lester's character string). If the m-dashes
> don't connect, it'll be more complicated, but not bad. On the Font tab
> for the paragraph, set the spread to -20% to eliminate the gaps.
>
> This creates a problem though -- it'll also squish the text characters.
>
> To fix this, create a new character tag that has all properties set to
> As Is except the Spread -- which you leave at 0. Apply it to the text
> in your leading tag, and it should revert the text to normal
> appearance. You may be able to automate this using the Autonumbering
> tab to set the character tag -- I didn't test that part of it.
>
> Art
>
> Art Campbell
>               art.campbell at gmail.com
>  "... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52
> Vincent and a redheaded girl." -- Richard Thompson
>                                                      No disclaimers apply.
>                                                               DoD 358
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 3:05 AM, Michael Kerrisk
> <michael.kerrisk at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I have a simple question (I think). I Would like to create a visual
>> effect (that will be repeatedly used) where a some text on a line is
>> tabbed to the right margin, and preceded by an unbroken line that sits
>> at the mid-level of the characters in the text. Roughly it would look
>> like this:
>>
>>  ------------------------------------------ mytext
>>
>> where the final "t" falls at the right margin. The idea is that the
>> line should be unbroken (unlike my ASCII line above), as one might get
>> by splicing together a series of en- or em-dashes.
>>
>> I can get something close to this effect using a Right Tab, and
>> specifying the leader character as underscore (_):
>>
>>  ________________________ mytext
>>
>> But the problem is that the line falls at the bottom on the
>> characters, when I want it in the middle.
>>
>> I don't seem to be able to specify an en- or em-dash as the leader
>> character for the tab. But perhaps I missed something. Is this
>> possible (and will it produce the result I want)? Failing that, is
>> there another way of achieving the kind of effect I'm describing?
>>
>> I am using FrameMaker 7.2. (If what I'm wanting to do is possible only
>> in a later version of FrameMaker, that would be interesting to know.)
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Michael
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