Tab Problems

[CBuddha]

I am having trouble with tabs. I have a CD song list and some of the artist's names are too long so I want to split the name and put it on the next line. I have my tabs set to 3.5" with a dotted line separater. See example below:

1. My Girl....................................................... Temptations
2. Make Me Your Baby.........................................Barbara Lewis
3. This Diamond Ring....................................Gary Lewis & The Playboys
4. Shake Your Body Down To The Ground..................The Jacksons
5. Get Down On It..............................................Kool & The Gang
6. I'm Too Sexy..................................................Right Said Fred
7. Brown Eyed Girl.............................................Van Morrison
8. You're The One That I Want...................John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John

As you can see, numbers 3 & 8 artists names are too long for the CD cover list. I need to split them in half and put the second half of the name on the second line, without messing up the tab & separater. How do I do this?? I am using Windows 7 Home Premium.

I want it to look like this:

1. My Girl........................................................Temptations
2. Make Me Your Baby.........................................Barbara Lewis
3. This Diamond Ring..........................................Gary Lewis & 
                                                                   The Playboys
4. Shake Your Body Down To The Ground..................The Jacksons
5. Get Down On It..............................................Kool & The Gang
6. I'm Too Sexy.................................................Right Said Fred
7. Brown Eyed Girl.............................................Van Morrison
8. You're The One That I Want..............................John Travolta & 
                                                               Olivia Newton-John

Note: For some reason, I cannot get the artist's names to come out right in this example on your page. The Playboys should be right under Gary Lewis &. The same is true of Olivia Newton-John, it should be right under John Travolta &.

Thank you in advance for all your help!!

[CBuddha]

Bill,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I have done that, but when I hit the tab button the name does go where it's supposed too, but I also get the dotted separater line in front of the separated name. How can I get rid of the dotted separator line? I have tried to turn it off in the tab section, but that removes the dotted separater line from the whole line above the split.

CBuddha

[Bill]

I noticed that after I hit "Submit" and subsequently deleted it. You may need to hit Enter to start a new paragraph where you want to split the name and apply a different paragraph style which doesn't add the dotted line before the tab stop.

[CBuddha]

Bill,

Just tried doing as you suggested. When I hit the enter key and go to the next line, I change the tab settings, but when I hit the tab key it just goes about four tabs & then stops.
It won't tab over anymore.

CBuddha

[MrProgrammer]

I want it to look like this:

1. My Girl........................................................Temptations
2. Make Me Your Baby.........................................Barbara Lewis
3. This Diamond Ring..........................................Gary Lewis & 
                                                                   The Playboys

etc.

I am guessing you want it to be aligned like this:

1. My Girl...................................................Temptations
2. Make Me Your Baby.........................................Barbara Lewis
3. This Diamond Ring.........................................Gary Lewis & 
                                                             The Playboys

etc.

Open my attachment and use Format → Styles and Formatting. Find my paragraph style Topic 97498. Right-click and select Modify. First I made settings in the Indents & Spacing group of the dialog. Before Text = 11 cm, After Text = 2.5 cm, First Line = -11 cm. Before text sets the line continuations "The Playboys" to start 11 cm to the left. My right margin is at 17.5 cm so the paragraph is allowed to extend to 17.5-2.5 = 15 cm. The space for the artist's name is then 15-11 = 4 cm and the artist's name wraps to the following line after that. The negative First Line value ensures that only the continuations begin at 11 cm and the first line "3. This Diamond Ring" begins at the left margin. I realize this is confusing.

After setting the margins I used the Tabs group of the dialog. Tabs are set relative to the Before Text value of 11. So to get the first tab (after the index number) at 0.5 cm I specify -10.5 cm in the dialog and use the New button. Next I put a second tab stop at 10.99 cm by specifying a tab stop at -0.01 cm with fill character dots (……) and use the New botton again. I had difficulty when I tried to set the second tab stop exactly at the Before Text value. I realize this is even more confusing.

Changes to the Indents and Spacing seem to affect the Tabs, so it is best to set the Tabs second. This attachment shows that I am able to format the document the way you have described.

201903252134.odt

(13.54 KiB) Downloaded 92 times

A different approach would be to use a 2-column table where the titles are in the first column and the artists are in the second column. This may be easier for you. You should open a new topic if you want assistance with that idea. This topic is about Tabs and not about Tables.

OpenOffice 5

You are not using OpenOffice 5 because that does not exist. Specify your real version.

You may need to hit Enter to start a new paragraph where you want to split the name and apply a different paragraph style which doesn't add the dotted line before the tab stop.

I did not find that necessary with the procedure above.

If this solved your problem please go to your first post use the Edit button and add [Solved] to the start of the title. You can select the green checkmark icon at the same time.

[CBuddha]

Myprogrammer,

Sorry it took me a while to respond - Thanks for all the help.

I am using OpenOffice 4

I like to table idea, that seemed to work ok, but I found another un-orthodoxed way of doing this by mistake. I pressed enter and split the line, which dropped the artist's name down to the second line. I accidentally leaned on the space bar and noticed the name moved quite a bit, so I just continued with the space bar and to my surprise, it worked out perfect. So that's how I did all the rest of the long names. I'm sure this isn't the correct way of doing this, but it worked out in my case.

Thanks again.

CBuddha