Re: Using "Indent to Here" in InDesign on the second line of a bullet deletes the text aft

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
August 17, 2022
3 replies
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Is there some way to add this to a paragraph style?

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Correct answer Peter Spier

Set a left indent and a negative first line indent.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

Add what? You can certainly create a paragraph style with a bullet list.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

Peter Spier

Community Expert

This thread started in June 2018, then went dormant and some probably not-quite-on-topic responses got added. The OP never mentioned a bulleted or numbered list, nor did HeathenHarper to whom I was responding with advice for the general case. I think Bill Silbert covered list formatting pretty succinctly back in 2018.

But I guess I see where your question is coming from...

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

I didn't know what "this" was...

[I moved this to a new discussion--however, I don't know if the title is still valid.]

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

rob day

Community Expert

Hi @HeathenHarper , you might need a Nested Style. Here I’m styling the text to the first Indent To Here space with the List Dates Character Style, and then applying the SC style to the first Em Space:

Peter Spier

Community Expert

Rob, I think you can do the nested styles without resorting to an indent-to-here character. I interprested that last question as how to add a hanging indent to a paragraph style, and the proper way to do that, as pointed ouot several times, is to set a left indent for the paragraph and a matching negative first line indent. For bulleted or numbered lists one might also need to set a tab at the same value as the left indent, but that would only be the case for paragraphs need to have the beginning of the first line set apart fome the rest of the text in some way, as the dates in your example above.

Frankly, I see no need whatever for the first tab before the dates, unless that is a right aligned tab (but using tabular numbers would rather than proportional would eliminate the need there), nor for the indent to here. Using a negaitive first line indent that is smaller than the paragraph left indent would leave the numbers slightly indented without the leading tab.

rob day

Community Expert

I use Indent to Here when I want more than a bullet or number—a date string in this case, or a variable line of text—so yes if this is a simple bulleted list there’s no reason to use Indent To Here. I was assuming the OP was looking for something more than a bullet.

Frankly, I see no need whatever for the first tab before the dates

I’m using 2 tabs, the first is right aligned and aligns the date strings, followed by a left aligned to align the remaining text. Same idea as a movie credit alignment without resorting to a table or 2 columns