Can't grasp concept of left and right alignment.

[sheana]

I'm working with the tab settings, such as left, right, decimal and bar stop.
Along the horizontal ruler you can put a left-aligned tab stop all the way to
the right and vice versa. Can someone please tell me what a left-aligned tab
stop all the way to the right of the ruler accomplishes? Thanks in advance.

 

[CyberTaz]

Not much, but one possibility is to use a leader with it to get an
underscore (blank) at the end of a line that runs from the last bit of text
to the right margin.

The "concept" is simply to use the correct type of tab setting for the
required purpose

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Kenneth]

I'm working with the tab settings, such as left, right, decimal and bar stop.
Along the horizontal ruler you can put a left-aligned tab stop all the way to
the right and vice versa. Can someone please tell me what a left-aligned tab
stop all the way to the right of the ruler accomplishes? Thanks in advance.

Howdy,

Assuming that I am interpreting your question correctly...

Such a tab setting could be used to create something that
would look like this:

Cat Cat
Dog Dog
Horse Horse
Elephant Elephant
^
^
(right margin)


Here the first tab is right aligned, and the second is left
aligned.

It might make more sense if you think of the tabs as
creating columns of text.

All the best,

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/SettingTabs.htm. Note that in Word
tab stops can be set beyond the right margin (or paragraph indent); this is
handy when you want the text to wrap to the left of where the tab stop is,
for example in a TOC, where you want the entries to stop well short of the
page numbers.

 

[sheana]

Kenneth (or whoever can answer this), did you get the "cat, dog, horse"
effect simply by using left and right tabs, or did you use spaces also? I
tried to duplicate what you did and each word didn't move over by one space
as did yours.

 

[sheana]

Also, can walk me through 2 lines keytroke by keystroke to understand how to
do this? Thanks in advance.

 

[Kenneth]

Kenneth (or whoever can answer this), did you get the "cat, dog, horse"
effect simply by using left and right tabs, or did you use spaces also? I
tried to duplicate what you did and each word didn't move over by one space
as did yours.

Hi Sheana,

What you saw in your newsreader was not done with Word. I
was merely trying to show you what Word would display if you
were to set up such tabs in Word.

That said, in Word:

Click Format | Tabs and enter a tab at 1" (with the Left
version chosen with the radio buttons below.

Then, add another tab at 3" (with the Right version chosen
with the radio buttons below.)

Click OK to get out of the tab setting dialog, (and set the
tabs you have just created.

Then, with a blank doc visible:

Touch the tab key. (The cursor should jump to the right 1".)

Type XXXXXXX.

Touch the tab key again (and the cursor should jump 3" to
the right.

Type OOOOOOOOOO.

Touch Enter (to get to the next line.)

Touch the Tab key.

Type XXX.

Touch the Tab Key.

Type OOO.

At that point, your screen should look like this:


XXXXXXX OOOOOOOOOO
XXX OOO

The first Tab (at 1") aligns the text to the left, and the
second tab (at 3") aligns the text to the right.

If you keep typing in the fashion I described, you will soon
have two columns aligned in that way.

Using that approach, you can align columns to the left, the
right, or on decimals etc.

That last type of tab would produce a column looking like
this:

12345.678
1.23
.123
543.21

I hope that this is of help to you,

 

[Beth Melton]

I suspect Kenneth's example isn't what he originally had prior to posting.
It's difficult to demonstrate alignment in a newsgroup post -- something is
bound to become misaligned and it doesn't look lined up on my end.

Tabs are used for alignment. A manual tab removes the need to press the Tab
key a zillion times and add a bunch of spaces as an effort to align data.
They are used for many reasons since a paragraph in Word can only use one
paragraph alignment. If you need mixed alignment, such as in a header or
footer, and data needs to be aligned to the left and right then tabs are
used to create the alignment.

For example, in a book the title of a chapter might be left aligned and the
page number right aligned. If you use View/Header and Footer in Word you'll
see manual tab stops created for this purpose: to align content left,
center, and right. Other reasons manual tabs are used is for aligning data
in columns such as Name, Address, City, State. (Although note if using Word
then a borderless Word table is preferred over created a tabbed table.)

Perhaps this article will help as well (Scroll down to the section titled
"Tab Stops" near the bottom):
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA011226861033.aspx

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Beth Melton]

I'm sure you are able to see what happened to the alignment after you've
posted.

To add an additional note, they should numbers align at the decimal point.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton

 

[Kenneth]

I'm sure you are able to see what happened to the alignment after you've
posted.

To add an additional note, they should numbers align at the decimal point.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton

Hi Beth,

When I view the posted message, the alignment is perfect.

Despite that, I suppose that I should have mentioned the
possibility that with proportional fonts, the alignment
would not be right.

All the best,

 

[Beth Melton]

Yeah, alignment is always difficult to show due to different fonts and
newsreaders. For example you are using Agent and "sheana" is using the web
interface on microsoft.com to access the newsgroups. Here's what it looks
like there:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...83552d-9f30-41a3-8a04-b8e35f563606&sloc=en-us

I'm using OE and the alignment is out of whack on my end as well.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Coauthor of Word 2007 Inside Out:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/9801.aspx#AboutTheBook

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Kenneth]

Yeah, alignment is always difficult to show due to different fonts and
newsreaders. For example you are using Agent and "sheana" is using the web
interface on microsoft.com to access the newsgroups. Here's what it looks
like there:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...83552d-9f30-41a3-8a04-b8e35f563606&sloc=en-us

I'm using OE and the alignment is out of whack on my end as well.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email cannot be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Hi Beth,

Oh, what a mess...

I may have contributed to the confusion. In any case, I hope
that Sheana has it sorted out.

All the best,

 

[Beth Melton]

Oh, what a mess...

I suspect the reason why I noted the numbers should align to the decimal
point makes more sense, now. lol

I may have contributed to the confusion. In any case, I hope
that Sheana has it sorted out.

Oh, I doubt you added any confusion -- you provided great step-by-step
instructions.

~Beth Melton