How to get a Text shift automatically in InDesign?

[apa68177991]

I was wondering if you can do such a text shift automatically in a text field with paragraph styles or in a similar way. It is important that the first few words align on the right edge, followed by equal spacing, and then the last word-aligned on the left edge. And last but not least, everything shifted by an oblique.
I'm a bit stumped on the quick, maybe one of you has an idea. Should be something like the screenshot.

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[Scott Falkner]

Looks like you want to add some tabs to the tab ruler. Just click and drag to add a tab, then select the type of tab you want while the tab is highlighted. For the first tab you'll want a right aligned tab. You will need to type a tab at the beginning of the paragraph. 

As for "shifted by an oblique." I guess you could create multiple Paragraph Styles giving each of them different tan positions. Use Next Style to apply each style in series. 

Perhaps this can better be done with scripting. If so, I can't help you there. 

[apa68177991]

Exactly, I've already thought of tabs, but it would only be advantageous if you could set them relatively

[Scott Falkner]

I just thought of something but I'm not at my computer to test it. Try giving the text frame a slanted left edge. Say, drag the top left corner to the left. 

[apa68177991]

That's exactly what I was thinking too, this works very well for the offset, but when you try to change the alignments with tabs you notice that they are always in the same place and not relative to the text box shape

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Ah, wait. There's another feature, badly named and mis-sorted among the menus, that might work. I've always known it as a "spring tab" or "expanding tab" (even in FrameMaker, IIRC), but in InDesign it goes by the mysterious name of "Flush Space." It acts as a 'spring' or expander when type is set to Full Justify.

Set your lines to Full Justify, and put a Flush Space — bottom of the Type | Insert White Space menu — where you want the expanded space. See if that gets you to where you want to go. The initial indent is going to have to be style-related, though, I think, meaning you will need n styles for the number of indents you want. Or maybe a tab will work for that, with the springy spacing...

[apa68177991]

I now think the easiest way is to just make a new text box for each line, and then I can just work with tabs and bring in the shift towards the end. Anything else would not quite lead to the goal.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

That's a very messy approach from a structural viewpoint. It will likely lead to all kinds of downstream problems. 

In general, you want to keep your page structure simple (ideally, one text frame per page) and use styles and orderly content to achieve your goals. 

InDesign really doesn't like the "stick stuff all over the boards" layout approach of Illustrator (or amateur use of Word 🙂 )

[apa68177991]

I absolutely agree with you and always follow this approach, but depending on the application it is not necessary if it is so much easier. There's always a point where you have to take the path of least resistance to move forward. Or you don't move any further, even if other complications can arise, but you can't always live with ifs and buts and simply bite the bullet and just do what brings you to the goal.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Other than scripting, I can't think of any way to do this automatically or even "assisted." It's going to take individual attention and adjustment, either by you or by a script that automates the steps for each line.

The combination of requirements is just outside any conventional layout features. Slanting the text box, as Scott suggests, might be an alternative method, but it still needs manual set up of the style and tabs in each line.

[Peter Spier]

Actually I think you are onto something withthe flush spaces. If you use one between each segment of the line it should spread any empty space evenly between them. Combine that with a SKEWED text frame so both left and right edges are sloped identically and I think it can be done without anty other special attention.

[Peter Spier]

OK, I had some time to experiment, and the skewed frame doesn't work -- it skews the text as well.

[apa68177991 · Accepted solution]

Definitely the best solution so far. I find the textwrap method better than the pathfinder approach for my purposes, if you have an idea how to do the line between the would be perfect.

[Dirk Becker]

Something like this?

Text frame with two columns.

First column right aligned.

Text wrap around a sheared rect.

[Dirk Becker]

Instead of text wrap, Pathfinder subtract also works.

[apa68177991]

Definitely the best solution so far. I find the textwrap method better than the pathfinder approach for my purposes, if you have an idea how to do the line between the would be perfect.

[Dirk Becker]

What do you mean with line? I created a rect then applied the "shear x angle" from the control strip (or transform panel).

Splitting the text lines for the colums (you could also use independent text frames) feels like cheating - I took my initial copy with tabs, duplicated it with a column break in between, then manually removed the other side per line. For a longer text I'd eventually use a find-grep. Find "(.*)\t(.*)([\r\n])" Change to "$1$3" or "$2$3" respectively.

[Peter Spier]

I have finally figured this out. See screen capture.

[Peter Spier]

To be fair, this is based on suggestions from Scott Falkner and James Gifford.