Default for Increase (/Decrease) Indent

[jep1955b]

It appears that the Increase (and decrease) indent buttons are set for 2 characters. I also note that apparently typically TABS are not used. Is this value hard coded? Can it be changed?

It appears that a Bullet does the bullet + 1 space then text.
It appears that Increase Indent adds 2 spaces (I use it to line up graphics with the bullet level)

It would be nice to change both to use a value of 4 (actually 3 would be better!!!!)

[Tim Green]

Hi Jep,

Tabs should only ever be used if you are generating ONLY Word or PDF output. All other outputs are HTML based and tabs do not exist in HTML. Using them there creates massive formatting errors. There is only one case where a tab is both OK and required in Help+Manual and that is for the space between the left and right parts of the first line in paragraphs with hanging indents. There you must use one and only one tab, but in HTML that is converted to a stable HTML structure without a tab.

The indent buttons unit is a default and can't be changed. Generally, when you are creating paragraphs with special indents you wouldn't use the indent buttons, which are just a convenience and unlikely to be accurate enough. You want to set the indent manually in the paragraph settings. This should ideally be in a style, since manual formatting always overloads both your XML source and your HTML output code, and makes it impossible to make global changes. Note that there are also indent sliders in the ruler above the editor window.

Lists include a standard indent by default, which is OK for small bullets and single-digit lists. For anything more you need to set the indent manually on the FIRST item in the list, which controls the indents for the entire list. Here too, preferably use a style. Note that lists only have one indent for the entire list, and this includes multi-level outline lists, so you do need to take care to set a compromise value that works best for the entire list.

It would be nice to change both to use a value of 4 (actually 3 would be better!!!!)

The indents may look as if they are character-based at first glance, but they're not. Everything in the editor uses pixels as the standard unit, even if you change the display units to inches, cm or points. We recommend keeping it set to pixels, because using inches or cm in particular can result in slight rounding errors. Pixels are always the most accurate.

I'm going to pass on the request for adjustable standard indents anyway, which is something that hasn't come up before.

[jep1955b]

Ideally, Increase Indent and the default Bullet indent would be changed (changeable) so the bullet would default to current plus ~ 0.18" and then each indent would be whatever is required to line the graphic up with the bullet text.

I would LIKE this, but don't put it as a #1 priority just for us.