Index in PDF output: controling elipses

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Mark Wilsdorf
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Index in PDF output: controling elipses

Unread post by Mark Wilsdorf »

I have elipses set up for the Index page in Print Manual Designer, and they work fine when the index entry refers to no more than two or three pages. But when there are, say, four or five page references for an entry, the elipses push out to the left of the index keyword itself. The attached file shows.

There seems to be no way to truncate the right-aligned field containing the page references. Any way to change this?
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Tim Green
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Re: Index in PDF output: controling elipses

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Mark,

This is happening because your template is using the old method, in which the leader dots are manually entered in a text object that is overlapped by another text object. There are two ways to deal with this:

1) Reduce the number of manually-entered dots in the text object. You need to find a balance in which there are enough dots for the shorter entries but not so many that longer entries will push the dots beyond the left end of the index keyword on the left. This will be tricky in your case since the keyword is indented, leaving lots of space for the dots to be visible in.

2) Switch to the new method, in which the leader dots are auto-generated. This is really preferable, and will eliminate these problems completely. The setting is called "justified labels" and you can find the instructions in the Manual Designer help in Designing a Template > Inserting Objects > Text Objects. Here's the summary:

Any text object will turn into a justified label if you insert a row of 5 or more of the supported dot characters listed below between two blocks of text in a single paragraph in the text object. Then the left block is left-aligned, the right block is right-aligned and the dot characters are repeated between the two.

Text in left text block ..... Text in right text block

There must be a space before and a space after the dots (unless you are using spaces, of course). You must use a minimum of 5 dots (7 including the spaces before and after when you are using spaces), but you can enter up to 19. If the object contains 20 or more dots they are ignored (this prevents old manual dot leaders from earlier Help+Manual versions from breaking the layout).

The second step is to set the Alignment: option of the text object to Justified / Fill.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Mark Wilsdorf
Posts: 151
Joined: Thu Dec 24, 2009 8:41 pm
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Re: Index in PDF output: controling elipses

Unread post by Mark Wilsdorf »

Thanks Tim...the new method worked fine.
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