Adding a Line Using the Shape Tool. To add a vertical line using the shape tool, go to Insert Shapes and select the Line tool. Place the cursor where you want the line to start, and drag to where you want the other end of the line to be. Holding the Shift key while you drag will ensure that the line is straight. Microsoft Word has two different typing environments: text and math. To obtain the math environment, click on 'Equation' on the 'Insert' ribbon on Windows or Word for Mac '16, or in 'Document Elements' on Word for Mac '11. The keyboard shortcut is 'alt'+ '='. For a Mac system, the shortcut is control + '='.
A leader tab shows a series of dots or other characters where the tab appears on the page. Press the Tab key in Word 2016 and the insertion pointer hops over to the next tab stop. The space added is empty, but it doesn’t have to be. Word lets you apply different styles to the empty space, which help create something called a leader tab.
Three styles of leader tabs are available: dot, dash, and underline, as illustrated here.
You can apply a leader to any tab stop in Word other than the bar tab. To do so, follow these steps:
- Create the tab-formatted list.
- Select the text as a block.
- Bring forth the Tabs dialog box.The quick shortcut is to double-click a tab on the ruler.
- Select the tab stop from the Tab Stop Position list.
- In the Leader area, choose the leader style.
- Click the Set button.Don’t click OK before you set the tab stop to add the leader. This step is the one you’ll screw up most often.
- Click OK.The leader is applied.
Use the underline leader tab to create fill-in-the-blank forms. In the Tabs dialog box, set a left tab stop at the far right margin (usually, 6.0 inches). Choose the underline leader style (number 4). Click Set and then click OK. Back in your document, type a tab to create a fill-in-the-blank line, such a:
This format is far better than typing a zillion underlines.
Last week in the first part of this back to basics series on tab leaders we discussed creating dotted tab leaders in the Tabs palette to separate columnar text. Now, let’s talk about formatting those leaders.
Tab leaders–dots, underscores, hyphens, smiley faces, whatever–inserted via the Tabs Ruler are automatically the same font and color as the surrounding text. If you set a leadered tabstop amidst black 12/16 pt Electra LT Std Regular text, you’ll get a black 12/16 pt Electra LT Std Regular leader. And, if you change the character and paragraph attributes of the entire paragraph, the leader will change as well. Often times that’s exactly what you want. Often times, you’re satisfied with the chocolate covered coconut goodness of a Mounds bar. But, sometimes you feel like a nut (see Figure 1). Sometimes you want to go all the way and get yourself an Almond Joy. It’s at those times you want the tab leader to look a little different–maybe a different shade, color, or even typeface. Formatting the leader is the topic of this installment of “Tab Leaders,” and it’s easy.
First, set your text, and, following the instructions in “Tab Leaders (Part 1): Separating Columns of Text with Dots,” create the tab leaders. Close the Tabs Ruler.
As you can see with invisible characters shown (Type > Show Invisible Characters), InDesign treats tabs inserted with the keyboard TAB key as characters. They’re invisible characters, obviously, but characters nonetheless, and they can be formatted like any other character–visible or invisible. Using the Type tool, select just the tab character, which should now be represented by a visible (and printing) series of dots. Now you can format the leaders like you’d format any character–using the Character, Swatches, Color, or Gradient panels.
Want a leader that is a lighter shade of its current swatch color? Open the Colors panel and drag the tint slider to the left. Pick a new swatch to change the leader color entirely. Adjust the Tracking field on the Character panel to loosen or tighten the spacing between periods in the leader. How about larger periods? No problem: up the Font Size or even adjust the vertical or horizontal scale. Heck, if you don’t like the shape of the periods, you can change the Font Family and Style fields, too. Fl studio 9 full version cracked.
Of course, any changes you make to the tab and leader count as overrides to your paragraph style. If you ever force reapply the paragraph style or use one of the other methods of clearing overrides, your carefully formatted tab leaders will revert to matching their surrounding text. They will, that is, unless you create a character style just for the leader.
- With the leader still highlighted, open the Character Styles panel (Window > Type & Tables > Character Styles). Click the New button at the bottom of the panel, which will create a new style, “Character Style 1.” (New character styles are numbered sequentially, so yours might read “Character Style 2” or another number.)
- Double-click “Character Style 1” to open the Character Style Options dialog (see Figure 2).
- Change the name to something more representative of the style’s function, something like “List 01 – Tab Leader” or whatever works for you. click the OK button.
Now, you’re done. By double-clicking the character style to access its options you also simultaneously assigned it to the highlighted tab character. Now highlight the tabs in the list’s other lines and assign the same character style to them.
![Leader Leader](https://www.exceldashboardtemplates.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/VerticalLineChartTry1.png)
![Insert Leader Lines In Word For Mac Insert Leader Lines In Word For Mac](https://legalofficeguru.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Word-TOC-Dialog.png)
Assigning character styles to the tabs can also be automated–you do it once, and thereafter InDesign will do it for you automatically. We’ll talk about that in part 4 of “Tab Leaders.” Next week in part 3 we’ll perform a very different task: inserting leaders in paragraph text to create write-in blanks such as you might find in a contract or form.
For now, there’s one other important bit of information I’d like to impart: The location of the tabstop and the fact that it has a leader is also an override to the paragraph style. To ensure that you don’t lose those bits of data, highlight a bit of text in your line–don’t include the tab in your selection. Then, on the Paragraph Styles panel (Window > Type & Tables > Paragraph Styles), open the panel flyout menu in the top right corner and choose Redefine Style (see Figure 3). That will add the location of the tabstop and its leader option to your paragraph style definition. Of course, if you hadn’t already created a paragraph style for the tab-separated list, create one using the same procedure as building a character style but on the Paragraph Styles panel.
Follow this link for part 3 in the series.
Pariah S. Burke (www.iamPariah.com) is a design and publishing workflow expert bringing creative efficiency into studios, agencies, and publications around the world as principal of Workflow: Creative (www.WorkflowCreative.com). He is the author of the first InDesign book written for experienced InDesign users, Mastering InDesign CS3 for Print Design and Production (Sybex, 2007), and other books on Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Creative Suite, and QuarkXPress; author of more than 250 published articles; the former trainer and technical lead for InDesign, InCopy, Illustrator, Photoshop, and Acrobat to Adobe?s own technical support team; a freelance graphic designer with 20 years experience; a WordPress evangelist; and the publisher of the Websites Quark VS InDesign.com (www.QuarkVSInDesign.com), Designorati (www.Designorati.com), Gurus Unleashed (www.GurusUnleashed.com), Workflow: Freelance (www.WorkflowFreelance.com), and the Creatives Are Community and Toolbar (www.CreativesAre.com). When not traveling, Pariah lives in Portland, Oregon where he writes (a lot) and creates (many) projects and publications to empower, inform, and connect creative professionals.
Insert Leader Lines In Word For Mac Download
- Discretionary Line Breaks - October 19, 2007
- Tab Leaders (Part 6): Tips and Tricks - September 25, 2007
- Tab Leaders (Part 5): Fixed-Width Floating Tabs/Spacers - September 17, 2007