InDesign Smart Alignment and Indents with TABs + Paragraph Styles

[@jeremiahalienyi7702]

Where have you been since I was looking for you? Boy, thanks for this tutorial!

[@BenjaminHalsall]

Happy to help!

[@MikeFrench-hm6xj]

YES.. You beauty, working on a 120+ page doc with loads of bulleted lists, this has saved me such a headache!

[@BenjaminHalsall]

Really happy it was helpful.

[@SketchbookTimeMachine]

Why are TABs so impossible in InDesign?! Thank you for this video! Explains a lot and really helped! 👍

[@BenjaminHalsall]

That is great to hear. Yes, they definitely take some getting used to!

[@chasingthesky]

Thank you so much!! I was trying to figure out how to indent the second line for my reference list for ages!

[@BenjaminHalsall]

Really happy you found what you were looking for here!

[@jasonrikard8232]

Wow. This really helped me out with some issues I was having with formating footnotes! Thank you so much!

[@BenjaminHalsall]

Really happy this helped you out.

[@amrgaber4400]

man your are professional with writing

[@BenjaminHalsall]

Glad you liked it.

[@elinedeboer7326]

Amazing! This was super helpful, explaining exactly what I was looking for. Plus some things that had never even crossed my mind. Thanks so much!

[@BenjaminHalsall]

Glad it was helpful!

[@JustinWebster-q8t]

Hello Ben, just watched your smart alignments and indents with TABs youtube. Excellent, thank you. I have a question relating to setting up styles on Contents pages. I want to adjust my tab setting but it does not seem to allow me to go beyond 75mm. The tab bar is greyed out beyond 75mm and I can't shift it along. Any thoughts/ideas how to resolve?

[@ksenijajurinec2023]

Amazing. Turning nightmare in to joy! Thank you!

[@BenjaminHalsall]

Glad you enjoyed it Ksenija!! I need to do some more InDesign tutorials. Let me know if you ever have any questions.

[@ksenijajurinec2023]

​ @Ben Halsall: Final Cut Pro X&Adobe Tutorials > Here is one. I am designing a book, after changing space between footnotes or footnote font style, some parts of text become invisible, although the text is still on its place (visible selection highlight over text). When adding extra space between paragraphs text shows up again, but when removing extra space it disappears again. How to fix this? Thank you!

[@BenjaminHalsall]

@@ksenijajurinec2023 I think I can help with this but it would be good to see a visual of where the problem is. Could you take a screen grab or screen recording and share it with me - [e-mail] . Then I'll be able to give a better answer.

[@trishhartzell9354]

Thank you! The tabs are not intuitive. You saved me a lot of time.

[@BenjaminHalsall]

Really happy this helped. TABS are so useful in lots of situations.

[@Koreanisch]

Super helpful!!! Thank you so much!!! 😍🤗🙏

[@BenjaminHalsall]

You're so welcome!

[@agostinhoserra]

Great video... but what if I only want to indent the "speech" parts of my text. For example, every time a character in my book is speaking (- Something) and I want to indent only the first line of every paragraph that starts with this symbol (-)?

[@littleaguacate]

very helpful!!! thank you!!!

[@BenjaminHalsall]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Brandonbraun]

awesome video thank you!

[@BenjaminHalsall]

Thanks! I'm really happy you found it helpful!

[@nancya7289]

Tabs are overwhelming! Watching your video gave me some insight into the purpose of the various options. Nice to see someone proceed with confidence. It would have been helpful to have the options explained more explicitly: This variable adjusts this feature; this is the reason I entered the value -75 because this is how the values work. Also, I'm viewing your video on a small Mac laptop with middle-aged eyes so your screen information renders in a pretty small font. Off to watch more tabs vids. Happy designing.

[@BenjaminHalsall]

Thanks for the kind words and the helpful feedback Nancy.

[@ericliss9600]

Plug that mac laptop into a full-size monitor. If you're at home you should definitely have a larger monitor plugged in. Save your eyes!

[@talkwithdhana]

Thank you 😍

[@BenjaminHalsall]

You're welcome 😊 - Did you check out my InDesign Playlist? You may find that useful... kzbin.info/www/bejne/gpXNemqDqN1kqpY

[@mtc1516]

thank u so much for sharing!

[@BenjaminHalsall]

You are most welcome!

[@kevzams]

That's so enlightening. Thanks mate

[@BenjaminHalsall]

Thanks! Glad you found something useful in teh tutorial.

[@freddymzungu]

I need footnotes with indented text but with the actuall footnote number not indented (not with command back slash as parargraph styles doesn't rememeber this). Tabs?

[@ToukaTV]

Thanks! You helped me a lot!

[@BenjaminHalsall]

You are most welcome. Let me know if you have other InDesign questions.

[@evelinemeijering]

Thanks for the tutorial, it was very helpful! Is there a way to have the red text in multiple lines whenever the text might be longer?

[@BenjaminHalsall]

That is great to hear.

[@thepurpleufo]

GREAT tutorial...thank you.

[@BenjaminHalsall]

You are welcome!

[@mtc1516]

I wonder how if I want the text on the left (red coloured) right aligned to tab but the paragraphs are left aligned to tab?? Thanks !!

[@BenjaminHalsall]

Can you give an example of what you are looking for?

[@mtc1516]

@@BenjaminHalsall hmm let's say I have 2 columns of texts like menu with prices... but I want them to align to the middle (space between name and price//(gutter) but I also want them to be in the same text frame is this possible?

[@BenjaminHalsall]

@@mtc1516 Something like this - twitter.com/benhalsall/status/1499446083637821440 - this is all controlled through one paragraph style.

[@tonytong7093]

That was a very cool idea. It's not so intuitive to figure it out.

[@BenjaminHalsall]

Thanks Tony, yes there are some neat hidden tricks in InDesign that aren't immediately obvious!

[@affandih]

Hi, How possible to make the first line into the 2nd line? I mean the bold text and red color you make, if the text is long without changing the tab size, how to manage automatically inserted into 2nd line? Thank you! :)

[@BenjaminHalsall]

Good question... I might need a little more detail on what you are looking for.

[@shone1505]

@@BenjaminHalsall All the red text in your example fits on one line. If the text is longer is it possible to go on the second line without messing up the layout? It doesn't seem possible. Maybe for that purpose it's better to just make separate text frames for red and black text so the red text can have as many lines as necessary?

[@PostyshevsBureau]

Отличное видео. Спасибо!

[@BenjaminHalsall]

Добро пожаловать! Спасибо за просмотр :-)

[@jamesoldman3021]

The tab value is always a soft conversion of the Imperial. How can I set the tab default to me a value I want? For instance rather than the conversion of a half inch to metric I would prefer to have the default 10mm. I have set all my measurements to metric and use mm.

[@BenjaminHalsall]

You can do that in the preferences without any documents open.

[@amylouisesmithart]

🙂Thank you

[@BenjaminHalsall]

You are most welcome. What are you working on designing?

[@amylouisesmithart]

@@BenjaminHalsall A menu. Is there a way after the fact to add the leading dots? I highlighted the text, brought up the tabs bar and added the dot, but they didn't appear. Then I went into the paragraph styles box, tabs, and added a dot in the box, but they aren't populating. Do I have to start over with a whole new style and this time do the dots?

[@scottdsyoung2650]

Would be better is you had show how to set this up in the style guides.

[@BenjaminHalsall]

Great suggestion.