Tab Stop Leader

[Hangman]

Is there any way to edit the font and/or font size for the tab stop leader as part of the TOC style so the tab stop leader appears using a different and/or smaller font than the TOC text itself?

I'm kind of assuming not as there's nothing obvious in the Text Styles panel that appears to accommodate this but thought I'd ask anyway...

[walt.farrell]

I don't think there's any simple way of doing that.

As a possible workaround: select a leader character you don't use in the document for any other purpose. Then use Find/Replace to find runs of that character, and replace with the actual character you want and the actual Character Text Style you want.

[Hangman]

4 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

As a possible workaround: select a leader character you don't use in the document for any other purpose. Then use Find/Replace to find runs of that character, and replace with the actual character you want and the actual Character Text Style you want.

I've not tested that but wouldn't that get overwritten as and when of if the TOCs are refreshed, i.e., it would only really work once everything is finalised and no further updates to the TOCs are made?

[walt.farrell]

1 minute ago, Hangman said:

I've not tested that but wouldn't that get overwritten as and when of if the TOCs are refreshed, i.e., it would only really work once everything is finalised and no further updates to the TOCs are made?

Yes, as with any other manual change to a TOC.

[walt.farrell]

I suppose a Feature Request to add the specification of a Character Text Style to leader dots would be appropriate.

Also, the TOC definitions don't seem to allow an easy specification of leader dots. I think you need to edit each of the entry Text Styles individually, unless you use the more primitive setting the TOC panel has. Perhaps the TOC panel should allow a more standard leader dot function, and allow the Character Text Style for them to be specified there, too.

[thomaso]

Since leading characters need a style it might work with a character style for the leader only.

31 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

As a possible workaround: select a leader character you don't use in the document for any other purpose. Then use Find/Replace

Assuming a leader character appears at least three times within a line I wonder if there is a way to use any character and assign a char style with an according search, like "~~~" or "ooo" for the samples above. – Unfortunately it fails.

Also F&R fails when I want to search for a certain tab definition: here I a must not edit the preset leading char "." … this field lets me select but not type … different to the tab definition > leader I had set in the paragraph panel.  – Does this work / not work the same way in V2?

 

[Hangman]

9 minutes ago, thomaso said:

… this field lets me select but not type … different to the tab definition > leader I had set in the paragraph panel.

I've been assuming this is a bug as it doesn't allow you to edit the character in V1 or V2 as part of the tab leader paragraph style which seems a little odd... as you've shown, the full stop can be highlighted but can't be deleted or edited which makes little sense...

[thomaso]

11 minutes ago, thomaso said:

an according search, like "~~~" or "ooo" for the samples above. – Unfortunately it fails.

While I can't search for a multiple leading char with F&R I can search for a tab and change the leader char style this way by assigning an according style defined for "Replace". Means leading chars always appear in the style of their tabs.

[Oufti]

1 hour ago, Hangman said:

I've been assuming this is a bug as it doesn't allow you to edit the character in V1 or V2 as part of the tab leader paragraph style which seems a little odd... as you've shown, the full stop can be highlighted but can't be deleted or edited which makes little sense...

Actually, on Mac with V2, if it is indeed impossible to change or delete the leading character when in the Modify text paragraph style dialog (and this is a bug), we can change it from the Paragraph side panel and then click the Update style button in the context toolbar, or via the burger button aside the style name. 

 

 

[thomaso]

6 minutes ago, Oufti said:

(…) if it is indeed impossible to change or delete the leading character when in the Modify text paragraph style dialog (and this is a bug), we can change it from the Paragraph side panel and then click the Update style button in the context toolbar, or via the burger button aside the style name. 

I vaguely remember a custom leader issue has been reported / logged for V1 as a bug in the Text Style Editor window – whereas above I tried to use a custom character in the panel Find & Replace >  Format. (note the different window titles: "Edit Text Style" versus "Choose Format". ) – How about this in V2?

[Oufti]

BTW, to first answer the initial question, I was unable by any means to change the tab style in a way that remains through refreshing the TOC. 

(But Find and replace tabs with a format works well, when all the layout job is finished, as @thomaso shown.)

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, Hangman said:

I've been assuming this is a bug as it doesn't allow you to edit the character in V1 or V2 as part of the tab leader paragraph style which seems a little odd... as you've shown, the full stop can be highlighted but can't be deleted or edited which makes little sense...

You can edit the tab leader character on Windows, so perhaps it's a Mac-only bug?

 

[Hangman]

4 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

You can edit the tab leader character on Windows, so perhaps it's a Mac-only bug?

That would certainly seem to indicate it's a Mac-only bug. It's the same for the decimal character which also can't be edited on Mac, e.g., to change from a say '.' to a ','

[thomaso]

10 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

You can edit the tab leader character on Windows, so perhaps it's a Mac-only bug?

It appears to be logged two years ago as afb-4577, for instance:
(interestingly the same tag meanwhile also includes other inaccessible value fields for V2)

[thomaso]

59 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

You can edit the tab leader character on Windows,

Does this mean it is possible on Windows to use F&R -> Format to find tabs ("\t") of a certain style AND with a specific, custom leader character?

[walt.farrell]

2 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Does this mean it is possible on Windows to use F&R -> Format to find tabs ("\t") of a certain style AND with a specific, custom leader character?

I haven't tried. Do you have a sample .afpub document you could share?

[Oufti]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

Do you have a sample .afpub document you could share?

Here you are. 

Demo TOC.afpub

In the last page TOC, please look for right aligned tabs, set at 58 mm, with " ›" (space + greater than [Edit: Sorry, it was a more bizarre character, Space + SINGLE RIGHT-POINTING ANGLE QUOTATION MARK, U+203A]) as leading character, and styled as "TDM récap: Titre 3".

 

On my Mac, Find and Replace does not find such a styled tab. 

Nota: I had to ruse to insert data in the F/R format field: 

 

P.S. In the meantime, @thomaso has posted his example. Sorry, I didn't want to interfere…

Edited July 31, 2023 by Oufti
Mistake about the leading character used in the example file…

[thomaso]

36 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Do you have a sample .afpub document you could share?

 tab and leader styles 2.zip

I am not sure if Wingdings and MinionPro are part of Windows, so I packed with fonts.
The paragraph panel contains two tab stops with different leader characters. (60mm: tilde ~ | 150mm: capital F)
Two saved tab styles are paragraph styles assigned as character styles, one is a child of a character style only. The tab styles don't have tab stops saved.

[thomaso]

59 minutes ago, Oufti said:

Sorry, I didn't want to interfere…

Why not? … Now Walt has a choice … 🙂

I just don't understand you here:

1 hour ago, Oufti said:

On my Mac, Find and Replace does not find such a styled tab. 
(...)
Nota: I had to ruse to insert data in the F/R format field: 

What was your ruse to enter a leader character in F&R? Or do I misunderstand and you just set style and tab, – without defining the specific leader char for F&R? (what I actually want to get tested by Walt)

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

The paragraph panel contains two tab stops with different leader characters. (60mm: tilde ~ | 150mm: capital F)
Two saved tab styles are paragraph styles assigned as character styles, one is a child of a character style only. The tab styles don't have tab stops saved.

I can find based on the assigned Character Style (though to get that to work, I needed to edit the Paragraph Text Style and specify "show in both panels"), so they showed up in F/R in the Character Style list.

However, if I specify the tab stop (e.g., 60mm) and the leader (e.g., ~) nothing is found.

Thus, this works:

 

But this doesn't:

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

I can find based on the assigned Character Style (though to get that to work, I needed to edit the Paragraph Text Style and specify "show in both panels"), so they showed up in F/R in the Character Style list.

Thanks for testing, and sorry, yes, my styles weren't sufficiently defined because I just wanted to see if it is generally possible to define in F&R > Format a custom tab leader character (which failed to me, as mentioned above). Now your second screenshot seems to confirm the positive test result with its "Tab Stop: 60mm Leader: ~".

… while there can't be a found result because this style "tab C" is as character style without any tabstop definition (like the two paragraph styles in my .afpub).

That appears to mean for your solution / workaround…

9 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

As a possible workaround: select a leader character you don't use in the document for any other purpose.

… that any leader character can be used and get re-styled via F&R, limited to a "TOC:entry" style only.

[Oufti]

6 hours ago, thomaso said:

I just don't understand you here:

What was your ruse to enter a leader character in F&R?

I'm sorry, I should have posted here also what I reported elsewhere, instead of putting a link :

 

8 hours ago, Oufti said:

Freshly proposed workarounds [for the "not possible to type" bug in the Style Editing and F & R Format dialogs, on Mac]

— In the field "Position", arrows work (though rounding any decimal value). 

— For the fields "Decimal" and "Character" (but not "Position"), the macOS Character Viewer (via the globe key 🌐 on certain keyboards or the menu bar) allows to input text in, even if the keyboard is useless.
To validate it, you will have to click in another field before leaving the dialog, since the Return key is as inefficient as any other.

Thus, if you want to change the tab leading character on a Mac in these buggy dialogs, you select the tab leading character and you activate the macOS Character Viewer, you insert therewith what you want and close the Viewer. Then you (double)-click in the Position field, validating so what you inserted in the Character field. 

+++++++++++++

6 hours ago, thomaso said:

Or do I misunderstand and you just set style and tab, – without defining the specific leader char for F&R? (what I actually want to get tested by Walt)

No, you don't.

I defined specific leading characters [i.e. Caractère(s) de suite:  › ] in the paragraph saved style (through the update style button) AND ALSO in the Find & replace format dialog (via the Character Viewer, as finally explained).

— In order to be more focused, I omitted in my query any other format than the tab stops settings. I also tried with and without the \t » character.

On my Mac, this resulted in nothing found, as was summarized here above: 

+++++++++++++++++

P.S. What seems to me the most easy and efficient is to:

Simply search for a tab with the TOC paragraph style (because by definition it includes the customized leading character) and replace it by a tab set to the desired format, be it a character style or local format.

If there is only one tab in any line, it seems perfectly OK for a quick "one shot" change. 

But without forgetting that

13 hours ago, Hangman said:

it would only really work once everything is finalised and no further updates to the TOCs are made

 

Edited August 1, 2023 by Oufti
Adding the last screenshot