Misaligned bullets

[casinclaire]

I have set up a paragraph style for bullets. When I apply them to the series that starts with text (in this case, "Grade,"), they line up perfectly. When I apply the same style to the series that starts with a numeral (see images), the first line indents by exactly a point and a half, taking it out of alignment with the following bullet -- as you can see, it only happens with the first bullet. This implies an indent setting problem, but all my indents are the same for all lines (it's the same style, after all). I can manually outdent that line and get by, but I'd like to figure out why it's doing this.

I've tried all the figure options under Open Type, within the paragraph style. My default is Tabular Lining.  Switching to Oldstyle numerals actually outdents to where it belongs, but then the numeral style is incorrect.

But because it aligned when I change the numeral style, I wondered if making the switch made me wonder if it had to do with tab settings. I checked the tab ruler on each line, and everything is identical. Also, I've checked all my indents (left, right, first line, etc.), and everything is in order. Does anyone have any ideas?  I've included images here. NOTE: I've used pink boxes in the image to demonstrate the situation more clearly.

I am sure this must just be me missing something obvious. But it is not obvious to me! 😞  Thanks much in advance for any ideas.

ADDITIONAL INFO: As a further note, I just applied the style to a series (starting with a numeral) that did not yet have the tab character inserted. They aligned until I inserted the tab character, then the first line indented 1.5 pt. This does not happen when adding the tab character to the series beginning with text. This may imply something about the tabs, but I'm also wondering about the proportional numerals. When I manually outdent the first line, the numeral comes with it, so I had to set up a style just for the first line in the numeral bullet series to shove the "1st" back into line with "2nd." Don't know if that tells anyone anything, but there it is!

[Willi Adelberger]

You need to make a tabulator stop at the place where numerals or text starts and separate bullet from text with a tabulator step in the paragraph style ^t.

For the numeral choose in the Opentype section tabular numbers (not all fonts have them on the correct place).

[casinclaire]

The lines themselves are indented 3 picas, and all the remaining 'dents are adjusted accordingly so that everything should line up with the tab stop that IS in place already.

[Willi Adelberger · Accepted solution]

Turn off the optical alignment for this story.

[Joel Cherney]

Does this gif capture what you're looking for? 

I have forgotten most of the terminology for this; I learned it two generations of forum software ago. I think it boils down to tab stops aligning to the bounding box of the glyph determined by the side bearing value.. Here's an image from the TrueType specification:

[casinclaire]

Thanks, that's a very interesting GIF with great info. I actually didn't realize I could get to those options from the character panel. Unfortunately, it doesn't solve the problem. It's the whole line -- bullet and all -- that indents 1.5 points, not just the material that comes after the bullet. (Just for the heck of it, I did try doing what you demo'd, and it made no diff to anything.)

I have made an interesting discovery, though.  It happens only with the lines that begin with "1" (I previously thought it was the "first line" in general -- didn't think about the specific numeral). On the second line, if I change 2nd to 1st, then that line -- including bullet -- will indent as well. I don't have anything set to right-align, so no idea why that happens. I AM using a tab stop to align the numbers.  I've just checked my para style thoroughly, including Open Type options, tab settings, and bullet settings, and I cannot spot anything that would cause the first bullet to indent on a line where the text begins with a #1. If I change 1st to 2nd, the bullet pops right into place.  It doesn't seem to matter which typeface I'm using -- I've tried sans and sans serif faces, and the results is the same. Any more thoughts, with this added info?

[rob day · Accepted solution]

It looks like it might be your Optical Margin Alignment setting.

If you are using a Paragraph Style for your bulleted list try checking Ignore Optical Margin in the Indents and Space tab, or turn it off in the Story panel

Here is my Bullets and Numbering setting: