first paragraph indent, tabbing, and line spacing

[Nita Sweeney]

Hi folks:

We've talked about this before, but I have additional questions.

Typically when I type a document in my word processor (word perfect),
I double space the document and automatically hit "tab" to indent the
first line of a paragraph. As we've discussed before, this doesn't
work in yWriter because when I'm in the scene editor window hitting
tab moves my cursor to another field and I wind up typing over the
scene title or something. I see the group discussion that says you
can make tab/no tab an option. In ywriter I see where I can make the
indent different measurements, but this doesn't really solve the
problem of me automatically tabbing like a robot.

What do folks do when you're actually typing text into ywriter? Does
everyone single space all the paragraphs and double space between
them in ywriter and then edit that into double spaced, first
paragraph indented text when you export it?

Also, I haven't found a line spacing function in yWriter so what I've
done in the past is actually edit the scene in my word processor
making it double spaced, tab indented paragraphs, and then cut and
pasted it into yWriter using ctrl-A and ctrl-V when I'm in the scene
editor window. [Or now in yW5 I can use the external text editor function.]

Since I've cut and pasted these double spaced paragraphs into yW5,
when I type new material, it winds up double spaced but I don't know
how to trigger the indent function to indent each of my newly created
double spaced paragraphs.

So two issues: line spacing and indent.

How do you double space your work (or do you?) and how do you indent
your paragraphs (or do you?) And how does the indent function work?
How do folks use that?

Thanks for your assistance,

~ Nita

[c Chaya]

Hi Nita,
I don't care about double spacing.  It's easy enough to export the final product to Word and set double spacing as the normal style for the whole.
For paragraph indent, I just set the indent amount in yWriter.  When I export to Word, again, through the style menu, I set the normal paragraph to indent the first line.  I prefer not having tabs in the file because they can mess up formatting if I conjoin paragraphs or send text via e-mail.
Janis Chaya 

--
Chaya
740.427.2650

[David Andrews]

Same as Chaya here. Except I type it first into Word and copy the plain text into YW. I think having YW attach little or no style information is best since it makes exporting to an external program that much more hassle free. As Simon has pointed out, YW isn't a word processor. If you have a specific style guide that you have to use (either by personal preference or job/assignment requirement) its best to do the formatting in a full fledged word processor.

That's just my opinion though. Others may use the program differently.

[JPlumey]

You may want to consider using the default rtf editor to save changes
to your files if you need more advanced editing functions. yWriter
lets you open a chapter in an external editor.

javier

[Nita Sweeney]

Thanks everybody for the input on this. I have a tendency to do things the hard way. I'm already using the external RTF editor, but that's where I was changing each scene to double spacing. I realize now I don't need to do that until the true end when I'm ready to export and can just do it in my word processor.

Sigh . . . now if the whole project weren't already double spaced . . . end of sigh.

THanks again,

~ Nita

[Simon Haynes]

Nita Sweeney wrote:

> Thanks everybody for the input on this. I have a tendency to do
> things the hard way. I'm already using the external RTF editor, but
> that's where I was changing each scene to double spacing. I realize
> now I don't need to do that until the true end when I'm ready to
> export and can just do it in my word processor.
>
> Sigh . . . now if the whole project weren't already double spaced . .

> .. end of sigh.
>
> THanks again,

Don't forget there's an option in the editor to switch tabbing on and off.

Cheers
Simon
--
Software designer & programmer
+ author of the Hal Spacejock series

[Nita Sweeney]

So, like, um, er, like, just never mind. This is what I was looking
for all along. Now I can tab at will.

~ Nita