Formatting Autotitle Elements

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laup
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Formatting Autotitle Elements

Post by laup »

I have a hard time formatting auto titles and must be doing something wrong, probably very elementary. I thought that the idea was to select a given element of an autotitle definition and double-click the relevant paragraph format in the paragraph palette. However, I frequently am unable to get this to work properly. I am unable to see whether only the element in question has been selected. For example, in trying to have a mix of Arabic and Latin letters, as in Appendix 5.A.1, I end up with all sorts of unintended things. Is there a trick?
Paul
Icelander
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Re: Formatting Autotitle Elements

Post by Icelander »

Hello Paul,

To beginn with, are you talking about Auto-Titles (= Level 1 to 10) or Tag Flows?
I don't see how you can create an Auto-Title as Appendix 5.A.1,I, so I assume you're talking about Tag Flows, which—to make make things unnecessary complicated— are unfortunately also sometimes referred to as Auto-Titles in the Manual. ☹
I thought that the idea was to select a given element of an autotitle definition and double-click the relevant paragraph format in the paragraph palette.
If you want to assign *one* part of the Tag Flow a special formatting, then this is certainly not the way to go because by double-clicking on a paragraph format you change the *whole* paragraph, that is, the whole Tag Flow.

Instead you should double-click a *character* format for those selected parts you want to assign a special formatting to; that ensures that only the part you select is assigned this particular formatting. You can, of course, also choose attributes directly from the Character Palette, that is, without double-clicking on any specific character style.

Now to Appendix 5.A.1.

I'm still trying to figure out how you create that as a Tag Flow. Please explain how you do it.

Thanks.
Last edited by Icelander on Thu May 23, 2019 3:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
laup
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Re: Formatting Autotitle Elements

Post by laup »

Hi, I had in mind auto titles, not tags. Your note, however, caused me to disentangle setting each element's Numbering Unit (e.g., arabic or Latin) and setting "style" paragraph or character style. This morning, I experimented again and had better luck setting the styles of elements separately. Perhaps the feedback is not as clear when using Mojave as I do at home, rather than High Sierra, as I am doing now in the office. Anyway, even though the menu at the top of the auto title definition window shows one choice of Numbering Unit for all automatically updated elements, they can be set differently. So, yes, I can get Appendix 3.A.1.1 as an example. I'm looking at an example at the moment.

The Autotitle in question is defined as
Appendix Prev1. Prev5. Prev 6. Curr# .TItle

The preview window show
Appendix 1.A.1.1 <title>

The Numbering Unit menu shows Arabic (1,2..) as chosen.

In a test manuscript, the relevant appendix section is titled "Appendix 3.A.1.1 Blah Blah". This is part of appendix A of Chapter 3.

I suspect that there is a bug preventing the Numeric Unit from showing separate values for each element. And perhaps I am exploiting a bug without intending to.

In summary,
You are right that: the whole Autotitle definition takes on a single paragraph style but we can give the elements different character styles

However, it is possible to set the elements separately with respect to their "Numbering unit". That is contradicted by the Numbering Unit item in the interface.

I think that there may be an interface problem with Mohave in that I don't easily "see" when I select a single element of the auto tile definition, whereas it's clear in High Sierra.

Thanks
Paul
Paul
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Re: Formatting Autotitle Elements

Post by Icelander »

Hi,
When I said I can't see how Appendix 5.A.1. can be created with an Auto-title I was trying to do it with Level 1, which doesn't have any "Previous Level #". The option "Previous Level #" begins with Level 2.
The Autotitle in question is defined as
Appendix Prev1. Prev5. Prev 6. Curr# .Title
When I look at your definition it seems (to me) that your Auto-title is Level 7 (or Heading 7.) Starting with Level 7, I was able to reproduce your format, and once it was established, there was no problem manipulating the single elements using the Attributes in the Character Pane.

I'm on High Sierra v. 10.13.6
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