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mandyb86008505
Inspiring
November 21, 2019
Question

Changing alignment between two lines of a paragraph

  • November 21, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 509 views

I am writing a text, the paragraph body style is justified. I want to start a new line for dialogue, but this needs to be left aligned, without starting a new paragraph. I only seem to be able to have either both lines justified - or - both lines left aligned, I can't work out how to separate the styles for the two lines. Help!  I have a lot of dialogue in different places (in a book) that all needs to be left aligned.

Thank you. 

 

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2 replies

Legend
November 21, 2019

Alignment is a paragraph attribute - for separate alignment styles, you will have to have separate paragraphs.

mandyb86008505
Inspiring
November 21, 2019

So I need to start a new paragraph for the speech? How do I make it look as though it is the same paragraph? Thank you

Derek Cross
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 21, 2019

Get a book on suggested styles for writing dialogue. Don't invent the wheel.

This may help: https://self-publishingschool.com/how-to-write-dialogue/

Derek Cross
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 21, 2019

You can have two Paragraph Styles, but maybe that's not what you mean. Can you mock up an example of what you want and post a screen shot on here?

mandyb86008505
Inspiring
November 21, 2019
 

  I would like the first six lines from "Despite" ...to "has died" to be justified (with last line left) then the dialogue lines left aligned.  You will see here the first chunk of the paragraph has moved to left align when I try to left align the speech. 

Derek Cross
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 21, 2019

Yep, two Paragraph Styles, and with InDesign 2020 you can assign keyboard shotcuts to each Style without having o have an extended keyboard.