Footnote spacing in 2nd line wonky when centered.

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withoutFeathers
Posts: 140
Joined: 2013-03-19 16:22:50

Footnote spacing in 2nd line wonky when centered.

Post by withoutFeathers »

Hi,
I’m having trouble spacing footnotes on second and third lines.

Background:
My book has two design decisions that can’t be changed now, because of the rest of the book:
1. There are multiple footnotes per line.
2. The footnotes paragraph is centered on the page.

To look balanced, I want them to have equal space between each FN.
If they’re all on one line, I can space them nicely by putting tabs in the ruler, like this:
-
Tab-spaced notes on one line.png
Tab-spaced notes on one line.png (15.17 KiB) Viewed 7505 times

But the problem is I have several pages that require two or more lines of these footnotes; and it ends up looking like this:
-
Problem with spacing second line of centered Footnotes.png
Problem with spacing second line of centered Footnotes.png (25.06 KiB) Viewed 7505 times

It turns out that Nisus applies the SAME tabs on all the lines, so on the second and later lines also. Spacing looks wonky on those lines.

I’ve read the manual and tried this in multiple different ways. Changing styles doesn’t help; using paragraph returns at end of first line doesn’t help.

What I seem to need are either:
a. A way to use spaces instead of tabs between footnotes. OR
b. A way to have different tab settings on the second or third lines.

I can’t find figure out how to do either of these.

I should note that I ran into this same problem four years ago on a single page, and solved it then by creating a single pseudo-footnote, and doing all the footnote citations on that page and references manually, and setting up my own style paragraph in the pseudo-footnote, with spacing the way I want it.

But this time I’ve got six different pages that would require this, so it would be far more convenient if I could leave the footnotes as they are, active.

I’m using version 2 of NWP, so if it turns out that this still isn’t possible in V2 I’d also like to know if there’s been any change that makes it possible in version 3.

Thanks for any information or suggestions!
wF.
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martin
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Re: Footnote spacing in 2nd line wonky when centered.

Post by martin »

There are no options in any version of Nisus Writer to have different tab stops on different lines of the same paragraph, sorry. Only different paragraph can have different tab stops.

However, Nisus Writer Pro version 3 does have a new option that might help you. When you enable "multiple notes per line" you can now choose an automatically enforced horizontal spacing amount that is fixed between all notes. Here's an example of the results:

notes.png
notes.png (34.98 KiB) Viewed 7499 times

You can see the notes have the same horizontal spacing between them. There's no need for you to configure tab stops on the ruler.
Þorvarður
Posts: 410
Joined: 2012-12-19 05:02:52

Re: Footnote spacing in 2nd line wonky when centered.

Post by Þorvarður »

I’m using version 2 of NWP
That is the problem. I think the feature 'Horizontal Spacing' for Multiple notes per line was introduced in v.3.1. Spaces are used instead of tabs, just like you want. The default space is 2.1 cm. For my taste that's too big; 0.5 seems nice.

The version 3 has some other significant improvements, like split window. It's also remarkably faster (at least on my machine.) Large documents are opened much faster than in previous versions. You will love it!

1.png
1.png (80.43 KiB) Viewed 7482 times
2.png
2.png (18.14 KiB) Viewed 7482 times
Last edited by Þorvarður on 2020-12-15 06:00:04, edited 1 time in total.
withoutFeathers
Posts: 140
Joined: 2013-03-19 16:22:50

Re: Footnote spacing in 2nd line wonky when centered.

Post by withoutFeathers »

Thank you both.

I believe that as long as I could still choose to center the FN paragraph (and I expect I could?), with that enforced spacing in V3 it would be just what I want.

However, if I recall correctly, my (fatal) problem with version 3 when I tried it was that when opening long documents (i.e., 1200 pages), it did two annoying things that were different from version 2:
  • a) It kept jumping the scrollbar while loading, which was intrusive and made it hard to use during the loading process.
    b) It wouldn't allow access to later in the file until the loading was done.
I compared for a while and couldn't get used to the new version 3 mode of opening, and on enquiring I was told that this was a major change in the underneath engine and hard to undo.

But that's a while ago. Has there been any improvement in this? If so I'll try it again.

wF

p.s. @Þorvarður: No, multiple notes per line is also in version 2. That's how I'm using it. :)
withoutFeathers
Posts: 140
Joined: 2013-03-19 16:22:50

Re: Footnote spacing in 2nd line wonky when centered.

Post by withoutFeathers »

martin wrote: 2020-12-14 13:27:01 However, Nisus Writer Pro version 3 does have a new option that might help you. When you enable "multiple notes per line" you can now choose an automatically enforced horizontal spacing amount that is fixed between all notes. Here's an example of the results:
Martin thanks,
and forgive me for being picky. But my concern is with centering.
I note that, strangely, your example looks like the centering is not correct between the two lines.

I mean, if that paragraph is centered, why are the left and right edges of the two lines not arranged around one common center (the center of the page)? The second line is indented more, so it doesn't look like centering.

I'm concerned I may merely switch problems in V 3, and still not be able to center all the lines.

My guess is that the enforced space between #4 and #5 is being carried to the start of #5, and being counted there as the start of the line. Is there are workaround that could fix this?

Though, on second thought, if I set the enforced spacing quite small, that might be less noticeable. Which might do it, and be good enough. "The perfect is the enemy of the good." :)

wF
Þorvarður
Posts: 410
Joined: 2012-12-19 05:02:52

Re: Footnote spacing in 2nd line wonky when centered.

Post by Þorvarður »

withoutFeathers wrote: 2020-12-14 19:33:33 No, multiple notes per line is also in version 2.
Sorry for not being more precise. I meant the ability to adjust the 'Horizontal Spacing'.
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