Left-aligned tabs
A left-aligned tab is the most commonly used, where the text aligns on the left side and moves out to the right, just as you expect when you type or write in English. If you did Task 3 on page 66, you were using left-aligned tabs. Here is another small exercise.
Task 5 Create a chart using left-aligned tabs
- Create a new text frame about five or six inches wide.
Type the text below. Do NOT hit a tab at the beginning of each line; only hit the Tab key before the words True and False. As shown below, the text will not align, but that’s okay, as long as True has one tab and False has another tab.
- Select all the text.
- Open the Tabs panel if it isn’t already. If necessary, click the magnet icon to snap the panel to the text frame.
- Click the left-aligned tab marker.
Single-click in the ruler at a position beyond the end of the longest question. That new tab marker deletes all the default tabs to its left, so now all the Trues jump to that first tab marker.
All the Falses jump to the second tab marker, which will be the next default they can find. Click in the ruler to set another tab a little farther to the right. Feel free to move them around!
Task 6 Create another chart using left-aligned tabs
This exercise is different from the previous one only in that you are going to set the tabs before you begin typing.
- Create a text frame about five inches wide.
- With the insertion point flashing in the text frame (which means that text frame is selected), open the Tabs panel (from the Type menu, or use the keyboard shortcut (Command Shift T or PC: Control Shift T).
- Set tabs at .75 inch and 2.5 inch.
- Choose a font size of 10 point.
- Type the text shown below.
After the first paragraph of body copy (“Below is a list . . .”), hit tabs before the headings and the entries in the “Relation” and “RSVP yes” columns.
Hit Enter at the end of each row.
At any point, select all of the text and move the tab markers as necessary.