# Formatting Paragraphs

This section will detail all the options available to format paragraphs.

To format a paragraph, place the cursor in the paragraph. To format more than one paragraph at a time, simply select the paragraphs with the mouse or keyboard.

You can format one or more paragraphs one of three ways:

- Select Format Paragraph... from the menubar

- Type &Alt;&Ctrl;P

- Place the mouse pointer in the paragraph and click once with the &RMB;. A small menu will appear. Select Paragraph....

A dialog will appear.

The Paragraph Settings dialog consists of six tabbed sections labeled Indent and Spacing, Aligns, Borders, Bullets/Numbering, Tabulators, and Shadow.

## Indents and Spaces

With this dialog box the spacing between lines, and the spacing between paragraphs can be specified.

The first section of this dialog box is labeled Indent, and consists of three parts:

Left

  Enter a value in this box to indent the lines of the selected paragraphs away from the left margin. The first line is unaffected by this box. To alter the first line, specify that value in the text box labeled First Line.

Right

  Enter a value in this box to indent all lines of the selected paragraph (including the first line) away from the right margin.

First Line

  Enter a number in this box to indent the first line of a paragraph away from the left margin.

The next section controls how &kword; divides paragraphs when a paragraph will not fit entirely within the current frame or page.

The first option is labeled Keep lines together. If this option is selected, then all of the lines of the paragraph will remain on the same page. If this is not selected, &kword; may choose to move part of a paragraph to a new page or frame. For most work, this option is usually left unchecked.

The next two options are labeled Insert Break Before Paragraph and Insert Break After Paragraph. When one of these options is checked, and the paragraph moves to the next frame in the frame set, a hard frame break will be inserted in front of the current paragraph or after the previous paragraph (depending on the option selected). This will serve to keep the paragraph in the next frame, even if text prior to that frame is deleted. This option is often used in conjunction with Keep lines together, to ensure that the paragraph does not creep back onto the page during editing.

The next section is labeled Line Spacing. It consists of two elements:

Drop-down box

  The drop down box determines the spacing between lines. There are three predefined line spacing choices: Single, 1.5 lines and Double. You can also select Custom which will allow you to enter a specific line spacing.

  The values selected here will be applied to all lines within the selected paragraphs.

Text box

  Enter a value in this text box to specify the spacing between paragraphs. This value only changes the spacing when Custom is selected in the drop-down box to the left.

  Changes to this entry do not affect the line spacing between lines of different paragraphs.

The last section is labeled Paragraph Space. It consists of two entries:

Before

  By entering a value here, additional spacing is added before each paragraph.

After

  By entering a value here, additional spacing is added after each paragraph.

On the right of the dialog box, is a preview box, which will approximate the final layout of your document.

## Aligns

This section determines how the text is placed within the line. With other applications, you may have referred to this as alignment, or justification.

There are only 4 choices.

If Left, Right or Center are selected, the text will be moved on the line so that it aligns with the left margin, aligns with the right margin, or is centered between the margins respectively.

If Justify is selected, &kword; will increase the space between words, so that each line (with the exception of the last line in a paragraph), reaches both the left and right margins.

You can use toolbar buttons to quickly change the justification of one or more paragraphs

Button | Command
--- | ---
| Left Align
| Center Align
| Right Align
| Justify Text

On the right of the dialog box, is a preview box, which will approximate the final layout of your document.

## Borders

The next section is used to define and configure graphical borders around your paragraphs.

&kword; can surround (on some or all sides) a paragraph with a border. This border can be solid or not, of any color and of any size. This dialog panel is used to adjust the borders.

Style

  Use this drop-down box to select the overall type of the new border.

  The choices are previewed in each selection.

Width

  This will determine how wide the resulting border will be. It is measured in points.

Color

  Clicking on the color bar will allow you to select a color using the color selection dialog box.

Now that it is determined how the borders should look, specify which edges of the paragraphs need borders.

| Select/Unselect Left Border. Clicking this button will apply the current options to the left paragraph border. Clicking a second time will remove the left paragraph border.
| Select/Unselect Right Border. Clicking this button will apply the current options to the right paragraph border. Clicking a second time will remove the right paragraph border.
| Select/Unselect Top Border. Clicking this button will apply the current options to the top paragraph border. Clicking a second time will remove the top paragraph border.
| Select/Unselect Bottom Border. Clicking this button will apply the current options to the bottom paragraph border. Clicking a second time will remove the bottom paragraph border.

It is possible to mix and match border styles, widths and colors in one paragraph.

Simply determine the border style, width and color for one border edge, and select the border using the border buttons. Now alter the style width or color to create a new border look and select the new border button.

The Preview window will show you how your paragraph borders will look.

## Bullets and Numbering

A very common element of a document, is a list of items. The list contains several elements which may be numbered, for easy reference. Alternatively, the list elements may be simply set off from the rest of the text with a special character preceding each element. These special characters are called bullets.

This dialog box is used to define your bullets or the numbering method of lists in the document.. This dialog box can also be used to number chapters and sections.

The top section of the dialog box has three options: None, List and Chapter.

If None is selected, the text is not marked as either a list or a chapter. No other features of this dialog box will alter the text when this option is chosen.

List is used to create lists in the document. These lists are automatically numbered and formatted to appear similar. For more information on lists, see the section entitled Lists.

Chapter is used to number chapters and sections of a document.

## Tabulators

This dialog is used to adjust the tab stops. For more details, see Using Tab Stops.

## Shadows

This tab is used to create an artificial shadow of the text in the paragraph.

On the right of the dialog is a preview box. This box can be used to approximate the final look of the text.

The color of the shadow can be adjusted by clicking on the button labeled Color. &kword; will use the color selection dialog box to change the color of the shadow.

Use the spinbox labeled Distance to select the distance the shadow moves away from the text. A distance of zero will hide the shadow behind the original text.

Select one of the 8 direction buttons to determine which direction the shadow will move in.

When you are happy with your selections, click OK to apply your changes.