Center information by ( in each line

[TjL]

I have a list of data that I would like to organize to look better by
having a uniform appearance.

Each line has some text followed by additional text in ( )
I would like to center the data, and have the opening ( be the center
of each line.

So rather than

groceries (milk, eggs, butter)
Back to school supplies (pencils, paper, notebook)
Pie (apple)

It would look something like this (which will probably only look right
if you have a fixed width font, but you'll get the idea...oh and I
added leading periods for folks who will see this in HTML which would
otherwise collapse the space if it was just whitespace, but really I'd
want there to be blank space there)

...............groceries (milk, eggs, butter)
Back to school supplies (pencils, paper, notebook)
.....................Pie (apple)

I'd like to think that Word could do this, but I can't figure out how
it might.

 

[PhilD]

..............groceries (milk, eggs, butter)
Back to school supplies (pencils, paper, notebook)
....................Pie (apple)

Looks like you need to use tabs. Create a right tab for the 's' of
'groceries' (and the same place for each paragraph: select them all and
do them at once). Then create a left tab for the '('.

For your first line you would type:

[tab]groceries[tab](milk, eggs, butter)[return]

Then carry on as applicable. If you find the tabs need to be further
to the right (for example, you need a left side that's longer than
"Back to school supplies", highlight all paragraphs and move the tab
stop.

Post back if you need help setting up left and right tabs.

An alternative (which will work but is more likely long term to corrupt
the document) is to use a table where you cannot see the grid lines,
but I think the tabs will be neater, safer and less file space hungry.

PhilD

 

[CyberTaz]

Phil's suggestion will give you a neatly arranged list, but I think what you
are actually asking for is the capability of specifying the ( as an
'alignment character', which Word doesn't do.

You can set a center aligned tab stop, but the midpoint of the string tabbed
to - regardless of what the character is - will be centered at that point on
the line. Word also provides a Decimal aligned tab stop, but that's about
it. This is a feature that I've always wanted to see in Word, but it has
never come to be... Odd how MS continues to bombard the program with wave
after wave of so-called 'page layout' features that don't belong there in
the first place & cause problems if you attempt to use them, but a simple
little thing like user-defined tab alignment continues to evade the
developers in both the Win as well as Mac versions.

One other option is to use plain ol' center alingment in the paras, but that
won't align on the left paren. There is other jerry-rigging you can do, but
as Phil points out they are more trouble than they're worth & will probably
corrupt the doc sooner or later.
--
Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

..............groceries (milk, eggs, butter)
Back to school supplies (pencils, paper, notebook)
....................Pie (apple)

Looks like you need to use tabs. Create a right tab for the 's' of
'groceries' (and the same place for each paragraph: select them all and
do them at once). Then create a left tab for the '('.

For your first line you would type:

[tab]groceries[tab](milk, eggs, butter)[return]

Then carry on as applicable. If you find the tabs need to be further
to the right (for example, you need a left side that's longer than
"Back to school supplies", highlight all paragraphs and move the tab
stop.

Post back if you need help setting up left and right tabs.

An alternative (which will work but is more likely long term to corrupt
the document) is to use a table where you cannot see the grid lines,
but I think the tabs will be neater, safer and less file space hungry.

PhilD

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Haven't read this all too carefully, but would two columns work? One would
be right justified and the other left justified.

Beth

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Sorry. I meant a two-column table. If it's two columns, you have to mess
with section breaks and that shouldn't be necessary.

Beth

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

You need both a Right tab and a Left tab stop set for those paragraphs.

1) Each line must be a new paragraph (tab settings are a paragraph
property, you can't set tabs in a "line")

2) Set your Right tab where you want your left column to END (say, 5 cm)

3) Set your Left tab where you want your Right column to START (say, 6 cm)

4) Begin each paragraph with a tab (NOT an indent) to push the left column
up to the position of its right tab.

5) Place a tab immediately before the left parenthesis.

Cheers

I have a list of data that I would like to organize to look better by
having a uniform appearance.

Each line has some text followed by additional text in ( )
I would like to center the data, and have the opening ( be the center
of each line.

So rather than

groceries (milk, eggs, butter)
Back to school supplies (pencils, paper, notebook)
Pie (apple)

It would look something like this (which will probably only look right
if you have a fixed width font, but you'll get the idea...oh and I
added leading periods for folks who will see this in HTML which would
otherwise collapse the space if it was just whitespace, but really I'd
want there to be blank space there)

..............groceries (milk, eggs, butter)

Back to school supplies (pencils, paper, notebook)
....................Pie (apple)


I'd like to think that Word could do this, but I can't figure out how
it might.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410