The Mystery of the Text That Wouldn’t Align Right Contest Answer and Winner

Mike Rankin

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It’s time to reveal the solution—and the winner—for this month’s InDesignSecrets contest! 

Here’s the scenario: 

You’re given a file with a list of items in two columns, followed by note with an asterisk. The note sits in its own paragraph, in a threaded text frame directly after the list.

The note is currently aligned to the left, but you’ve been asked to make it align to the right side of the text frame, which extends to the page margins.

You put your cursor in the note paragraph and click the button in the Control panel for right alignment.

The note paragraph moves to the right, but it’s still nowhere near the right side of the text frame.

Also, if you click the button for center alignment, the note text moves but it is not centered in the text frame.

All text frames on the page are single-column frames with no inset spacing.

There are no indents on any paragraphs and nothing is affected by text wrap.

Why is the text aligning in this manner?

Solution: The culprit was the Span/Split Columns setting in the paragraph style. The big hint was that all the text frames on the page were single-column frames. This means that the list of cheeses that sit in two columns above the note was achieved with the Split Column feature.

The note paragraph uses the same paragraph style as the list. So it’s also set to split into two columns. Therefore, when you align it to the right, it goes to the right side of the left half of the text frame. Likewise, when you center it, it goes to the center of the left half of the text frame.

If you remove the image and move the text frames closer together, you can see what’s going on quite clearly.

And the winner of this contest is…

Joan Gemme

Joan wins full access for 3 months to the video archives for PePCon 2016 or the CreativePro Conference (up to $495 value!).

Thanks to everyone who entered, and be on the lookout for another contest with a new great prize next month!