- Understanding Graphic & Image File Formats – Bitmaps versus Vectors
- Using Guides and the Guides Layer in CorelDraw
- Corel PhotoPaint – Create your own Impressionist Painting Effect
Many people get round the problem by typing their chosen bullet symbol into a text box and placing that alongside the line of text to which it relates. This is fine in single page or other short documents where there isn't too much text, and what there is does not reflow much due to subsequent copy editing. But if you're using QuarkXPress for longer documents, where text flows through many pages, this method is not going to serve you well, as every time your text reflows, the bullets stay put and you then have to line everything up again. Of course, you can "anchor" the text boxes containing the bullets to the rest of the text, but we reckon the most efficient way is to incorporate the bullet symbols with the text. That way, they re-flow with the rest of the text on the pages when it moves around.
When you click that clever little button on the Toolbar in most Microsoft applications that applies bullets for you, it creates a "hanging" indent – where the bullet character "hangs" to the left of the paragraph it's associated with, like this:
- The bullet point in this paragraph uses a "hanging" indent. The bullet point "hangs" to the left of the main text in the paragraph. If the paragraph is only a single line, this "hanging" effect is not really noticeable. It's only when the paragraph runs into two or more lines that the "hanging" effect is obvious.
- This is the style of bullet paragraph that is most commonly used, and it's creating this style of bullet paragraph that is explained here.
A hanging indent is created from a combination of 3 different spacing attributes: a Left Indent; a First Line indent; and a Tab Position. Here's how it works...
Not bought your copy of QuarkXPress yet?
Not sure if it's right for you?
Click here to download your FREE demo copy of QuarkXPress 6
The Formats dialogue window (Style Menu, Formats) in QuarkXPress for paragraphs set like the ones shown here look like the examples above and below.
Now all that's left to do is to insert the bullet character itself, and the tab character at the beginning of each of the paragraphs. If you want a standard bullet point like the one shown above, just hold down the Alt + Shift keys (Option + Shift on a Mac) on your keyboard, and type the figure 8, then press the tab key once to insert the tab character.
If you want to use any other symbol, look in the Windows Character Map (Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools) at all the symbols available in each of the fonts you have installed. If you are using a Mac, use Key Caps from the Apple Menu and then use the Font menu to browse the characters available. When you find the character that you want to use as a bullet, double click it, and then hit the Copy button. Remember the name of the Font that the character was from.
Use the Paste command to insert your chosen character into the QuarkXPress document, at the beginning of your bullet paragraph. Then highlight the symbol and apply the correct font to it – that's why you need to remember the Font set you chose it from! Then press the tab key once to create the space between the bullet and the text. Use Format, Tabs to set the tab space correctly – it needs to be the same position as the Left Indent.
Once you've done it for the first bullet paragraph, you can copy both the bullet and the tab character, and paste it to the front of all the other bullet paragraphs in your document,
The result is a bullet point that is integrated with the text of your document, and that will reflow correctly with all of the rest of the text. Although it may seem a little fiddly, you'll soon get the hang of it. If you know how to create Paragraph Stylesheets, it's worth creating one for your bullets – the only thing the stylesheet can't do for you is insert the bullet point and the tab character, but you can easily do that bit for yourself.
If you use a lot of bullet paragraphs, it may be worth creating a bullet paragraph stylesheet in your default stylesheet list in Quark – that way the stylesheet will always be present in your stylesheets palette for every document. You can do this either by creating the stylesheet when the QuarkXPress programme is loaded, but no document is open, or, if you've already created a stylesheet in an existing document, use the Append Stylesheet command when no document is open to add it to your default stylesheet palette.
We hope you have found this brief lesson interesting and useful, and that it will help you to work more efficiently with QuarkXPress.
PPA runs regular QuarkXPress training courses. Click here to see the QuarkXPress Introductory course outline or here for the Advanced course outline.
PPA also runs courses for most popular office software, including Adobe PageMaker, FrameMaker, Illustrator, Acrobat and Microsoft Office and is a Corel Training Partner. For details of availability and prices please contact us. For a full list of courses click here.
If you have any comments regarding this or any other page of this website, or if you have suggestions for future features on this Hints & Tips page, please contact webmaster@ppatraining.co.uk
The Tabs dialogue window showing the tab setting for the bullet paragraph shown