Comments on: Tab Leaders (Part 6): Tips and Tricks

By: Sander

Sander — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 15:11:58 +0000

Tabs Inside Tables
After fiddling around a bit with this feature I came to this solution;

If you select a column from a table and you want the text aligned on a certain point, comma or other character..

get to Tab (ctrl/cmmnd + shft + T) to setup your tab
set Align to decimal > set Align on sign (character) > shift your messurement.. (you’ll see your text moving in the cell at a certain point)

So no tabs inserted in the table. Did this in InDesign 5.5

By: Dave Lombardi

Dave Lombardi — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 08:12:53 +0000

Thankyou for the tabs inside tables tip! I was worried I may have to re-do a document that needed leader tabs but IndesignSecrets to the rescue!

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 04:44:23 +0000

@Stephanie: Are you sure you aren’t using Shift-Tab (right align tabs), which pick up the tab leader from a previous tab stop? Have you tried to delete all the tab stops by choosing Clear All from the Tab panel flyout menu?

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 22:56:35 +0000

I am having a huge problem. I cannot seem to delete tab leaders I experimented with in a document. I keep clearing them all in the tabs palette and have deleted the “.” I put in the leader box of the tabs palette.

No matter what I do, when I hit the tab key, the unwanted leader dots show up. What’s worse, they are different for certain parts of what the ToC I’m trying to design. AND I can only get them to show up to the right of the middle item on each line:

June 1 Name of Chapter ……………….page number

can’t for exmple get the leader dots to show up between the June 1 and the Name of the chapter AND can’t clear the dots that are occurring between the name of the chapter and the page number. I am center aligning the center column (name of Chapter) and right aligning the folios.

I’d appreciate any help you can give me.

Thank you!

By: Old Jeremy

Old Jeremy — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 17:26:30 +0000

Apologies if I’m reinventing the wheel as usual, but earlier today I discovered another reason why a “dotted underline nested style” method can be better than the “dotted leader”.

Suppose you are working on a telephone directory, using a right indent tab to keep telephone numbers to the right of a column. Because the names and addresses are of varying lengths, they can bump right up against the numbers before the line breaks — if the only thing keeping them separate is a right indent tab.

However, if you have an em space as well as a right indent tab keeping them separate, both with a “dotted underline” character style applied (by being nested in the main paragraph style) the addresses can never get closer to the numbers than one em. And since that em space has dots in it like the right indent tab, there will always be a few dots between them.

By: Luc

Luc — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:07:16 +0000

Dear Pariah,
Thanks a lot for this deep insight serie on Tabs, a topic
that had always troubled me in the past and my InDesign
books wouldn’t resolve entirely. Also a spacial mention
to the writing and pedagogy which brought me to follow
the entire serie.
Cheers,
Luc, Paris

By: Martin

Martin — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 08:31:05 +0000

Just one small point:
“That’s if you typeset primarily prices in US Dollars. In the UK, decimal points and commas are the reverse of the way they’re used in the US; periods are used to separate whole values in the hundredths, thousandths, millionths, and so on while commas precede less-than-whole value digits. ”
Actually, that’s most of Europe excluding the UK. Decimal points are periods and unit separators (when used) are commas in the UK.

By: Eric Wong

Eric Wong — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 06:25:48 +0000

Hello,

I’m impressed by your 6 parts of Tab Leaders. However I have no luck following except part 1.

I want to know if there is a video training or a more detail step by step graphic tutorial available.

Thanks for your help.

Best,
Eric

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:09:04 +0000

@Diane, here's one answer for you.

By: Diane S

Diane S — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:22:18 +0000

So, part 3 didn’t really address this but sometimes (it was this way in Quark, too), the space before leaders is different on different lines. There shouldn’t even be a space there but it looks like there is. Keep in mind that the tabs and leaders are set to the same position AND if I can, I make a style sheet. Proof reader always dings us on it and I just don’t know what to do about it.

Would I have to do the underline thing and use a dotted line?

Can anyone help?

(respond to dserpa at ism dot ws if you get this message, thanks)