Re: Text Alignment

["D. Margulis" <ampersandvirgule -at- WORLDNET -dot- ATT -dot- NET>]

Reuven Frank wrote:
>
> Dear All
>
> We are running Word 6.0 in WinNT.
>
> Let's say that you create a new document with the Normal template.
>
> Next you choose Numbered Headings (1. , 1.1. , 1.1.1. ,...)
> Each of these headings is, of course, automatically indented; and, each =
> is indented more than the previous heading. (As is clearly displayed in =
> the Numbered Headings preview.)
>
> *The question is:
> Is there some automatic way that the text in the paragraphs will =
> automatically match the indents of the Headings?
>
> I could write a new template, and define a style for: "Style for =
> following paragraph" that will match these styles up.
> I guess the real question is: How come there isn' t some built-in way to =
> do this?=20
> Or, perhaps: How come Word doesn't do this automatically (or offer it as =
> an option), when you choose the numbered Headings option.
>
>


Because it would be a Really Bad Idea. In fact, the way Word's whiz-bang
template designers set it up is already a Really Bad Idea. (Not a
personal flame, Eric; Reuven's question is a valid one. It's just that
I've seen people get in major design trouble because they were seduced
by the apparent logic of this approach.)

You can certainly set up a bunch of new styles that have the indents you
are looking for; and for a simple outline (with short entries), this
might be okay. But for engineering documents with decimalized headings,
you would quickly run out of real estate on the page. Do you really want
to read the low-level detailed information in page after page of a
single two-inch wide column on the right edge of the page?

A better arrangement is to decide on a text column width (customarily on
the right side of the page, with a wide margin on the left--but other
choices can work, too) and to hang the headings flush left on the page
(sticking out into the wide left margin). You can use different point
sizes and weights to distinguish the various heading levels. Or you can
make them all the same size and weight but just have the successively
longer heading numbers marching in from the left while the heading text
sits tabbed in to the text margin. Or you can indent them in steps if
you really want to. For one client, I designed a light gray 6-point rule
that sat flush left on the page and grew in quarter-inch increments for
each new level of heading, with the heading number beginning immediately
after the end of the rule. This provided the cues needed to know what
level the reader was at while it maintained the page boundaries
visually.

HTH,

Dick