Tabs

Related Information

On-Screen Tabs

Tab Leaders

Mini Palette Form

Window Shade

Paragraph

Tabs Palette

The Tabs palette provides control and inspection of tab stops in a text box. Parameters are provided for specification of position, spacing, alignment, and leaders.

The full Tabs palette with Leader specification provides several parameters to manage intricate tab styles. In most cases this full capability will not apply. Use the Window Shade or Mini-Palette-Form capability to avoid work space clutter if this full capability is not needed. The palette form to the left is shortened with a window shade click, the mini palette form is shown in the example bottom left on this page. Go to the Tab Leader page to see the full Tabs palette.

If a text graphic is being edited; changes are applied to the selected range of the text. When not editing a specific text graphic; the changes will apply to all the text of all selected text graphics. Undo works in all cases.

This palette is accessed from the on the Text main menu, Paragraph submenu, Tabs selection (found at the top of the submenu). The parameters shown relate to a text box or a text selection in a text box. This palette does not work with Annotation text , only normal typeset text boxes.

The table at the top of the palette is used to numerically enter the positions of, or space between tabs. The table is like any other on macOS, simply double click a numeric entry to edit. Position is measured from the left of the text box. Space is the distance to from the previous tab stop, or the distance from the left edge of the text box in the case of the first tab. All measurements are in the Palette units, click the Palette Units button at the top of this page to learn more.

The Plus button is used to add a tab stop to the table of stops. As with other tables in macOS, click a row once to select, then click Plus to add a tab stop after the selected row. The initial spacing of the tab stop is the Run Space value to the right of the selected stop.

The Minus button is used to remove tab stops from the table of stops. As with other tables in macOS, click a row once to select, then click minus to remove. Multiple rows may be selected at once.

The On Screen checkbox is used to enable interactive editing of tabs directly on the drawing. When checked tab stop markers are shown at the top edge of a text box - when in the Text editing mode. In order to avoid drawing clutter, these are only shown when specifically requested with this check box.

The Align popup menu provides 4 selections for alignment position of the individual selected tab stop. The choices are, left, right, center and decimal. The example shown on the left below has the red/blue colored tab stops position on the decimal point and the black colored ones above positioned left.

The Run Space parameter is the spacing of all tabs after the specified tabs. This may be thought of as a "default" spacing. If a line of text has more tabs than are specifically specified, they are positioned at intervals with this spacing. The intervals begin at the position of the last tab.

There are several other parameters available on this palette for managing leader lines. Click this Tab Leader link to learn about these parameters.

Notice that tabs apply to a defined line, you need to explicitly type a return to begin a new line and thus start again at the first tab spacing.

In the editing mode, more than one character needs to be selected to specify (or inspect) tabs or a specific tab stop. Unlike font settings, tab settings cannot apply directly to the insertion marker, text must be selected.

Notice the distinction between "tabs" and an individual "tab stop". After selecting a text box many of the parameters on this panel may be disabled, this is probably because a specific tab stop is not selected.

Tab runs can be computationally expensive, especially when a text box may have several different tab settings for different sequences of text. EazyDraw optimizes this situation if a tabs specification applies to all text in a text box. This is not normally a problem with current computing power, but something to keep in mind.