Veronica Berglyd Olsen
126 lines
4.8 KiB
ReStructuredText
126 lines
4.8 KiB
ReStructuredText
.. _docs_usage_align_indent:
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*************************
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Alignment and Indentation
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*************************
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The Markdown standard doesn't have commands for aligning text, so novelWriter adds its own syntax
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for this. It also has syntax for indentation, which is similar to Markdown block quotes.
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Paragraph Alignment and Indentation
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===================================
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All documents have the text by default aligned to the left or justified, depending on your setting
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in **Preferences**.
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You can override the default text alignment on individual paragraphs by specifying alignment tags.
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These tags are double angle brackets. Either ``>>`` or ``<<``. You put them either before or after
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the paragraph, and they will "push" the text towards the edge the brackets point towards. This
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should be fairly intuitive.
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Indentation uses a similar syntax. But here you use a single ``>`` or ``<`` to "push" the text away
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from the edge.
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:bdg-info:`Example`
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.. csv-table:: Text Alignment and Indentation
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:header: "Syntax", "Description"
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:widths: 40, 60
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:class: "tight-table"
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"``>> Right aligned text``", "The text paragraph is right-aligned."
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"``Left aligned text <<``", "The text paragraph is left-aligned."
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"``>> Centred text <<``", "The text paragraph is centred."
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"``> Left indented text``", "The text has an increased left margin."
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"``Right indented text <``", "The text has an increased right margin."
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"``> Left/right indented text <``", "The text has both margins increased."
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.. note::
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The text editor will not show the alignment and indentation live. But the viewer will show them
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when you open the document there. It will of course also be reflected in the document generated
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from the **Manuscript Build** tool as long as the format supports paragraph alignment.
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Alignment with Line Breaks
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==========================
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If you have line breaks in the paragraph, the markers for all the lines are combined and used for
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the entire paragraph. For the following text, all lines will be centred:
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:bdg-info:`Example`
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.. code-block:: md
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>> I am the very model of a modern Major-General <<
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I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral
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I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
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From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical
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If you have multiple conflicting alignments on a paragraph, only one is applied. The order of
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precedence is:
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#. Left alignment
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#. Right alignment
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#. Centred text
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#. Justified text
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.. note::
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It is strongly recommended that you keep the **Preserve Hard Line Breaks** setting enabled in
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your manuscript build settings. This setting assumes all single line breaks in your text are
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intended. Turning this off makes adding line breaks more complicated, but it is still possible.
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See :ref:`docs_usage_align_indent_forced`.
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Alignment with First Line Indent
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================================
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If you have first line indent enabled in your manuscript build settings, you probably want to
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disable it for text in verses. Adding any alignment tags on a paragraph will cause the first
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line indent to be switched off for that paragraph.
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:bdg-info:`Example`
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The following text will always be aligned against the left margin:
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.. code-block:: md
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I am the very model of a modern Major-General <<
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I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral
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I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
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From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical
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.. _docs_usage_align_indent_forced:
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Alignment with Forced Line Breaks
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=================================
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If you turn off **Preserve Hard Line Breaks** in your manuscript build settings, you can still
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force line breaks in paragraphs using the ``[br]`` shortcode. For clarity in the text, you can add
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a line break after it as well. It doesn't result in two line breaks.
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Keep in mind that when the text is processed, the lines on either side of a ``[br]`` shortcode are
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combined, and any trailing hard line break is *ignored*. This means that when such a paragraph is
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processed, these line breaks count as the same line. This affects how alignment tags are handled.
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For instance, this text becomes centred instead of left aligned.
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.. code-block:: md
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>> I am the very model of a modern Major-General[br]
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I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral[br]
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I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical[br]
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From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical <<
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Since this is understood as one line, this is the only way you can actually centre this paragraph.
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.. caution::
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Due to this difference in how text with ``[br]`` tags are processed, it is generally better to
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stick with the **Preserve Hard Line Breaks** setting enabled. It ensures a better correspondence
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between what you see in the editor and what output you get.
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See also :ref:`docs_usage_formatting_shortcodes_break`.
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