Paragraph misbehavior

[KevinR]

Hi
I have to confess that the conventions of styles and paragraphs has consistently defeated me on Mellel and that keeps me from using it as often as I'd like. For instance, I have a paragraph setting that seems quite conventional: .25 first indent, 1.5 lines, .5 space after paragraph etc..

Yet, arbitrarily, I think, some paragraphs of say 5 lines generate a new page before the next para. If I backspace before the new para, so that the para break is eliminated, then the material from the new para comes back up onto the page. Insert a para, and it goes to a new page.

I can't figure what setting I have that produces this behavior. Worse, when I compare all the settings data with paragraphs that DON'T generate this behavior I see no difference.

I'd appreciate help here.
I'd also like to suggest that styles and all that be rethought. We may all be brainwashed by Word, but perhaps, even a translation of terminology,might help some.
KevinR

[jackcav]

Kevin

I have the same problem with unwanted page breaks which occur for no apparent reason.

Now, Mellel had begun to crash this document worse than any version of Microsoft Word ever did, and I have used every version of Word since 1.3. Since one of the stated reasons for switching to Mellel is "Crash Proof", this is inexcusable.

Jack

Hi
I have to confess that the conventions of styles and paragraphs has consistently defeated me on Mellel and that keeps me from using it as often as I'd like. For instance, I have a paragraph setting that seems quite conventional: .25 first indent, 1.5 lines, .5 space after paragraph etc..

Yet, arbitrarily, I think, some paragraphs of say 5 lines generate a new page before the next para. If I backspace before the new para, so that the para break is eliminated, then the material from the new para comes back up onto the page. Insert a para, and it goes to a new page.

I can't figure what setting I have that produces this behavior. Worse, when I compare all the settings data with paragraphs that DON'T generate this behavior I see no difference.

I'd appreciate help here.
I'd also like to suggest that styles and all that be rethought. We may all be brainwashed by Word, but perhaps, even a translation of terminology,might help some.
KevinR

[jannuss]

I can't figure what setting I have that produces this behavior. Worse, when I compare all the settings data with paragraphs that DON'T generate this behavior I see no difference.

parameters [in the paragraph style definition] that might be causing your problem:

1. if you have paragraph spacing set above the paragraph as well as below, the combination of the two might force a page break.

2. if you have "keep lines together" clicked and "all lines in a paragraph" selected that could force a page break.

3. if you have "keep lines together" clicked and "at start/end of paragraph" selected that could force a page break.

4. there's also the widows and orphans option: "keep with the next xxx lines"

Finally, even if your paragraph style definition contains none of these parameters, the ad hoc definitions in the Paragraph Style and Section palettes could be the source of the problem.

Janet

[jackcav]

None of these possibilities apply to my situation. Even if I clear all "Keep lines together" options, the unwanted--and random--page breaks occur. That occur far from the bottom of the page, even within the top one-third of printable area.

Jack

I can't figure what setting I have that produces this behavior. Worse, when I compare all the settings data with paragraphs that DON'T generate this behavior I see no difference.

parameters [in the paragraph style definition] that might be causing your problem:

1. if you have paragraph spacing set above the paragraph as well as below, the combination of the two might force a page break.

2. if you have "keep lines together" clicked and "all lines in a paragraph" selected that could force a page break.

3. if you have "keep lines together" clicked and "at start/end of paragraph" selected that could force a page break.

4. there's also the widows and orphans option: "keep with the next xxx lines"

Finally, even if your paragraph style definition contains none of these parameters, the ad hoc definitions in the Paragraph Style and Section palettes could be the source of the problem.

Janet

[ozean]

None of these possibilities apply to my situation. Even if I clear all "Keep lines together" options, the unwanted--and random--page breaks occur. That occur far from the bottom of the page, even within the top one-third of printable area.

Jack (and Kevin), do you think you could post a sample document that displays this behavior here? Or screenshots of your paragraph style and the page/paragraph that gets split? That way we could check and see if we find a cause of this strange behavior. Have you contacted the Redlers about this?

Of course, Mellel shouldn’t crash in any of these cases – perhaps you could submit your crash reports and the affected document to the Redlers so that they can fix this bug for your and our benefit?

[jackcav]

Ozean

I attempted to upload the two offending documents, but had no luck with the "Upload Attachment" command. Everything in the folder was available except the two Mellel documents. They were dimmed and could not be selected.

I did contact Redlers with the odd page breaks yesterday, but have received no response as yet. Honestly, I have found Mellel far more difficult to use than any version of Microsoft Word. The only reason I looked at Mellel is for the Hebrew handling, but I can work around Word's lack of adequate support for Hebrew far easier than I can deal with the weird behavior of Mellel.

Jack
Mac user since 1984

None of these possibilities apply to my situation. Even if I clear all "Keep lines together" options, the unwanted--and random--page breaks occur. That occur far from the bottom of the page, even within the top one-third of printable area.

Jack (and Kevin), do you think you could post a sample document that displays this behavior here? Or screenshots of your paragraph style and the page/paragraph that gets split? That way we could check and see if we find a cause of this strange behavior. Have you contacted the Redlers about this?

Of course, Mellel shouldn’t crash in any of these cases – perhaps you could submit your crash reports and the affected document to the Redlers so that they can fix this bug for your and our benefit?

[macsailor]

I had the same problem with the paragraphs and page breaks, but it stopped and I do not recall what I did that finally fixed the problem. If I remember what I did, I promise I will let you all know.

[jackcav]

I created a zip file containing the two Mellel docs with page break problems. They are both outlines of Deuteronomy, using Auto Titles. The first also contains a continuation of the outline using lists.

I used Auto Titles because they offer more opportunities for custom formatting, although both Auto-Titles and Lists are a painful ways to construct an outline. A simple method with keyboard shortcuts and arrow keys would be so much better. It appears to me that Mellel always picks the most difficult methods to accomplish tasks.

Jack

None of these possibilities apply to my situation. Even if I clear all "Keep lines together" options, the unwanted--and random--page breaks occur. That occur far from the bottom of the page, even within the top one-third of printable area.

Jack (and Kevin), do you think you could post a sample document that displays this behavior here? Or screenshots of your paragraph style and the page/paragraph that gets split? That way we could check and see if we find a cause of this strange behavior. Have you contacted the Redlers about this?

Of course, Mellel shouldn’t crash in any of these cases – perhaps you could submit your crash reports and the affected document to the Redlers so that they can fix this bug for your and our benefit?

[ozean]

I found the culprit:

keep-with-next.png

As you said, you deactivated the Keep lines together options completely (thus they are greyed out). Those options control the page-break behavior inside of a paragraph that consists of multiple lines.

However, the next option Keep with next [ ] lines is still turned on (the number inside is not greyed out). The number in that field controls the page-break behavior following the paragraph. As soon as you set this to 0, things will not get wrapped around to the next page in strange ways.

I think the UI in this window could be improved, perhaps by indenting those options that are affected by the Keep lines together check field. From the layout (or wording) alone, it is not obvious that the last option is not affected by the checkmark setting. In addition, the visual clue of greyed out numbers is easy to overlook. So this could be seen as an UI enhancement request to the Redlers from my side.

I hope this helps with Mellels odd ways. I agree that handling the many options offered by Mellel is confusing and I have had a difficult time with things which I understood now and again – and I will probably be in such a situation again sooner or later. But so far I have always found a logical explanation (or a pretty quick bug fix) for what happened and this has kept me with Mellel. In contrast to this, I have found so many confounding issues in Word which just could not be explained or which were just known bugs that carried from one highly expensive release to the next (fun with anchors comes to mind) that I feel really relieved that I don’t have to work in Word anymore. (Though I am still having to help others deal with Word’s mind-blasting absurdities.)

PS: The document did not crash for me, but it would probably still be a good idea to send then one of your crash reports for the crashes you encountered. You can find the crash reports in the Console application (which is in /Application/Utilities). A short description of when the crash happened, a sample document and the crash report should help the Redlers in squashing this bug.

[KevinR]

HI
Thanks for all the learned replies to my post. I have copied them into my "problem-solution" snippet file. Meanwhile, I obliterated all paragraph styles, created a couple of new ones, and then went through the 40 pages and applied them. I no longer have the problem. Not a very good diagnostic technique, but I had to get on with the project, which, of course, is less fun than spending hours trying to get at the root of the problem would have been.

I'm no apologist for Word. I just think that the interface of this "powerful" feature of Mellel is not very well designed. The nomenclature is especially obscure. What does "paragraph spacing--above below also at top of pg/col" convey at a glance. Why would I want it? I get it, on considerable reflection, but that checking this box can cause such mischief when most of us would never think of it--bad design I think.

What is really frustrating is that when a character format is invoked, and then one wishes to bold or italicize a word, one is sometimes prevented by the formatting setting. Again, sometimes this might be because the font doesn't have a true italics (and Word has accustomed us to being able to do "fake" italics or bolds) but most of us aren't type-setters. Why not provide the "fake" behavior via a toggle? I just want it to print in something that looks like italics, and that a publisher would see as italics (via the embedded codes), so s/he can set it correctly.

I understand purism, word processing is just not a domain where it interests me. The reason I use Mellel is not so I can set type with great precision, it is so that I can write Arabic or Arabic/European-language in a comfortable (ie non Microsoft) way.

Again, thanks to the fascinating Mellel community for your help with this problem.

[macsailor]

I found the culprit:

keep-with-next.png

As you said, you deactivated the Keep lines together options completely (thus they are greyed out). Those options control the page-break behavior inside of a paragraph that consists of multiple lines.

However, the next option Keep with next [ ] lines is still turned on (the number inside is not greyed out). The number in that field controls the page-break behavior following the paragraph. As soon as you set this to 0, things will not get wrapped around to the next page in strange ways.

That’s right. Now I recall. This was the solution I used to get rid of the »paragraph misbehaviour».

[jackcav]

Ozean

The "Keep with next [ ] lines" did seem to correct the random page breaks. However, I could not really tell as Mellel continues to crash with every other change to the document.

I received a reply from my original post to the Mellel support line, but it seems that I confused the responder. Following your advice, I replied and attached 4 crash logs and the two offending Mellel documents.

At this point I am less than optimistic that I will be using Mellel. For all its problems, Word is more intuitive and more customizable.

Jack

I found the culprit:
However, the next option Keep with next [ ] lines is still turned on (the number inside is not greyed out). The number in that field controls the page-break behavior following the paragraph. As soon as you set this to 0, things will not get wrapped around to the next page in strange ways.

<snip>

PS: The document did not crash for me, but it would probably still be a good idea to send then one of your crash reports for the crashes you encountered. You can find the crash reports in the Console application (which is in /Application/Utilities). A short description of when the crash happened, a sample document and the crash report should help the Redlers in squashing this bug.

[ozean]

If your motivation is not completely in the bin you might want to try two basic troubleshooting techniques:

1. redownload and -install Mellel and

2. delete your Mellel preferences.

To do 2. you need to delete the following files (or move them out of their current locations for the time being):

a) the whole Mellel folder in ~/Library/Application Support

b) the file com.redlex.mellel.plist in ~/Library/Preferences

~ is your home or user folder.

One other potential culprit for these kinds of weird crashes are fonts. The following tips would make sense if fonts are the cause of the crashes (I have no idea if this is the case or not, so feel free to ignore this): You could try to

a) validate your fonts using Fontbook

b) delete the font cashes using an app like Onyx or Maintenance (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/16790/maintenance) or Linotype FontExplorer X.

c) switching the document to a different font

Since you seem to have sound reasons for being disenchanted with Mellel, I would understand if you would abandon the app. However, if you want to give Mellel another try, I would recommend delving a bit into Don Broadrib’s excellent Mellel tutorial. It helps to overcome the very high learning curve, deal with the UI quirks, and get to the nuts and bolts of an app that allows customizations that are not even on the horizon for Word… (and some usuable work-arounds for those areas in which Mellel doesn’t shine in comparison to Word – yes they do indeed exist! )

[jackcav]

I had already completed the tutorial prior to attempting any serious word processing with Mellel. Frankly, I find Mellel's entire approach to be inadequate to my needs.

Jack

If your motivation is not completely in the bin you might want to try two basic troubleshooting techniques:

Since you seem to have sound reasons for being disenchanted with Mellel, I would understand if you would abandon the app. However, if you want to give Mellel another try, I would recommend delving a bit into Don Broadrib’s excellent Mellel tutorial. It helps to overcome the very high learning curve, deal with the UI quirks, and get to the nuts and bolts of an app that allows customizations that are not even on the horizon for Word… (and some usuable work-arounds for those areas in which Mellel doesn’t shine in comparison to Word – yes they do indeed exist! )