Question about Margins and Right Indent in Regards to a Chess Diag

S

StevenM

I have written a Word macro which processes chess information stored in a
text file (called PGN files) into two Word documents, which I call the
problem document and the answer document. Depending on the item selected from
the user, the problem document contains 4, 6, 9, or 12 chess diagrams per
page, with the answers to those problems placed in the answer document. Each
problem document has 2 or 3 columns (depending on how many diagrams are
placed on each page), and the chess diagrams are placed in a one-column
table. The chess diagrams are created with a special diagram font. Each
square of a chessboard is a (font) character, so a chess board without a
border would have 8 lines of 8 characters (for 64 squares). For example, if
one of the chess diagrams is switched to any normal font, let’s say, the
Times New Roman font, the diagram would look as follows:

rhb1kgn4
0p0p0p0p
wdwdwdwd
dwdwdwdw
wdwdwdwd
dwdwdwdw
P)P)P)P)

The borders of these chess diagrams are also (font) characters. Both the
squares of the chess board, as well as the border characters have of width of
one ‘em’ (the same width of an em-dash or em-space). A border character for
the right side of a chess diagram is like an em-space with a thin line down
its left side (creating a border effect for the chess diagram).

Here is the problem: The border character for the right side of a chess
diagram sticks out past the right border. So when I try to align the right
border of the chess diagram with the right side of a page, the actual border
character needs to stick out past the margin.

Here is my working solution: The answer document has a left and right margin
of 6 picas (or 1 inch) each. The problem document has a left margin of 6
picas, but a right margin of 3 picas. In order to create the appearance of a
6-pica right margin, the header and footer have a 3-pica right indent (the
3-pica right margin plus the 3-pica right indent are equal to a 6-pica
margin). This allows for the far right (page) column, the one-column table in
that (page) column, and the border characters in that table, to stick out
past the otherwise 6-pica margin.

After creating these two documents, I then add a page break to the end of
the problem document and cut and paste the answer document into the problem
document (so that the answers to the chess problems are in the back of the
document).

Here is my question: Is it okay for a document to have different sections of
the document with different margins? (It seemed to work for me.) Would it be
better for the problem document to have the same left & right margins of 6
picas, and then the body of the problem document to have a negative right
indent of 3 picas? Or is that even possible? Does anyone have any other
suggestions?

Steven Craig Miller
 
T

Tony Jollans

The answer to your question is, I think, yes. The reason I say 'I think' is
that it is fine to have different margins in Sections of a Document but,
until you actually ask the question at the end of your description, you
haven't mentioned Sections - merely Pages.

Whilst it sounds as though you have taken great care to make sure everything
is lined up, I do wonder if you haven't done a bit too much. Would it not be
easier to have a table with the appropriate (chosen) number of rows and
columns and to place each board diagram in a single cell?

I hesitate to say this as you already have your borders defined as font
characters but it may also be possible to create paragraph borders - or
table cell borders - to give the effect you want - but that may depend on
how ornate your borders are.
 

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