Quark Forums

Hello all, OK, I've sussed out how to get the fill characters working but the problem is this: Let's say you have some words and you want to appear like this: 'Blah blah blah...........................................Word' 'Blah blah blah ........................................Word' The space after the first words and the beginning of the dots varies on each line and I've checked all the tabs and they are the same. Now I'm stumped. Any suggestions? Many thanks

 

Don't use spaces between the end of a leader and the beginning of text. Use tabs.

Text......................................................................(tab stop w/leader)(TAB)Text.....................................(tab stop w/leader)

This may help:

OK, where you've shown a picture, you have text then a little tab arrow and then the dots begin. My problem is that after the words and before the dots, the spaces are varying, sometimes there is no space and the dots run immediately after the word and others there is a slight space!?!?!?!?!

I am using tabs by the way, straight after the words and up to a small space before a price. All tabs in question have fill characters as dots but they just seem to start at slightly different distances after the words rather than being consistent. Example: Word ........... Word............ Does this make more sense?

This is because the fills are aligning to the right tab. If there's room to fit one more dot it will, if there isn't it won't. This will depend on the width of the word I guess. But at least the dots align with each other.

Thinking about it, I can't see how you could have the same space between the words and the dots, and still have the dots aligning. A fixed space between the end of the word and the tab would help avoid the dots coming too close to the word, but I can't see how else it could be done. Any remaining space will surely be put between the word and the first dot, and that space will vary.

Emma pretty much covered it...you really do want all your dots to line up, and since they start on the right and space evenly toward the left, the varying length of the text on the left determines the space before the first dot.

You can put the cursor between the word and the first dot and use tracking to either add or remove a dot. Sometimes you can get it to look a little more consistent than Quark does automatically.

Only semi-related to the actual question: I usually use a period then a space for the fill characters. Sometimes there are just too many dots, and fewer dots can give you a cleaner look. Depending on the font, this might also make those problem spaces less obvious.

I will try this. Thanks all for your help. Amazing what you learn on here!