Quark Forums

Ok, is there an easy way to run dots left to right in a wedding program?  Or a menu? Apparently these dotted lines allow people to keep things in line as they read. I have been doing space bar/./space bar/.  Kind of gets old.

One way is to use a tab that has a fill character specified in the "Tabs" pane of the "Paragraph Attributes" dialog. With your cursor in text where you want the dots to start, press command shift t to bring up the dialog. Then, pick the type of tab you want based on alignment (right, left, etc.), enter a position for the tab or click on the ruler that appears on top of the text box, and enter a period in the "Fill Characters" field, then click ok. Then, with your cursor still in the text where you want the dots to start, press the tab key on the keyboard to move the cursor, hopefully leaving a trail of dots behind. One problem with this method is that the space at the beginning of the row of dots is not uniform, at least in my experience.

Another method is to use rules. Type out a line of text or just return a line and go to "Style - Rules" and then select "rule below". Select the options for a dotted line and the indents from each side of your text box. Voila! Make sure there is room in the text box for the line and sometimes you have to press return to get the line to show.

Thanks for your reply. I have 8 and this simply did not work. I was surprised. No periods followed the cursor. I would think this would be so simple. However this is solved I think it would also justify my lines to the right where there is no copy.

All I am trying do is use a row of dots (periods) to connect copy, like in a menu or a wedding program.  

Version 6.x has a bug in tab leaders whereby if the program has been up for some time you can apply tab leaders, but they don't show. The solution is to quit the program, reload and reopen the document and then apply tab leaders. It may be that Quark still hasn't fixed this.... 

 Holy crap. Ok. Here is what I JUST discovered in the book Quark for Mac OS. Old book but.....

I set the left side of the line (Pastor or Wedding March, etc...) then space bar and type the right side (John Smith or Composer etc...) then place the cursor in front of the right side and tab it over to right margin. Then go to line tool. Draw the line between them and from the line pop up I picked the "all dots". I had to play with the measurements from side to side which was easy enough and use the item selection tool (whatever that top left tool is that selects a whole line or box) to nudge it up or down in line with the bottom of the copy. 

Also, if I had a brain, I could step and repeat that line with the correctly measured leading all the way down the page, shortening it side to side as I went. 

STILL, I think there must be a better way, don't you think?

 

nikon:

STILL, I think there must be a better way, don't you think?

There is really no need to do it that way. Type the title, then the tab key, then the composer. No spaces needed. Go to the tab controls, set a right-sided tab stop at the right edge of your text box, and use a period for the fill character. Just for the record, there is space in the fill character field for two keystrokes, so if you want tight leader dots, use two periods, and for looser, use a dot and a space.

Tab stops are a paragraph attribute, so you can make a paragraph style and apply it to each <title-tab-composer> item, and not have to muck around with drawing lines manually.

Yeah, elpy zee and migman pretty much have it covered for setting a right tab (to position the text where you want it along the right side of the page), then applying a dot leader to that tab (by typing a period in the Fill Characters box of the Tabs dialog). Once you've done it a few times, it really is super easy. No need for drawing rules or any of that other stuff. Gprovan's dotted rules are an interesting idea, have to think about how to use that...the only problem for this application is that you'd have to change your indents individually for each line, which makes it not nearly as automatic as a tab with a dot leader.

One thing to make sure of while you're in the Tabs box is that the little arrow in the tab ruler needs to be selected/highlighted, then put the period in the Fill Characters box.

Also, I often use a period then a space as my fill character. It spaces the dots out more, which I usually prefer.