best way to do tabs

O

Olivera

Hi,

What is the best way to put tabs in a document. I'm
struggling with this feature?

Any help appreciated,

Olivera
 
K

Klaus Linke

Olivera said:
Hi,

What is the best way to put tabs in a document.
I'm struggling with this feature?
Click to expand...


Hi Olivera,

The best way: Don't ;-)

Tabs are rarely needed, and most times a maintenance nightmare.

Use tables if that's what you currently use tabs for.
Use indents (Format > Paragraph) for indents, hanging indents and first
line indents.

There really isn't much left if you do that.
"Valid" uses might be if you need tab leaders (say, dots up to the page
number in a TOC), or sophisticated stuff like centered and right-aligned
tabs, or decimal tabs to line up numbers.
For some of that, there really aren't any good alternatives.

If you *need* to use tabs (for example because of backward compatibility
with some other program that doesn't do tables or indents), you could
define the tabs in the style.
Many times though, it isn't worth the trouble because the tabs aren't
always the same.

If you do use tabs, a good rule is *not* to use the default tabs. Set them
the way you need them.
The ruler above the document ("View > Ruler") is a good tool to set them.
If you do a table with tabs, make sure you always need only one tab to move
to the next "column".

http://www.word.mvps.org/faqs/formatting/SettingTabs.htm has more info -- I
hope it won't contradict me, because I haven't read it ;-)

Regards,
Klaus
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

I think Olivera was asking not about how to put tabs in documents but how to
put tab stops. The article you cited
(http://www.word.mvps.org/faqs/formatting/SettingTabs.htm) will explain this
and will confirm your advice to set specific tabs rather than use the
built-in default ones. The most important thing, though, is, insofar as
possible, to define styles that have tab stops placed as needed.
 
B

Bob S

Hi Olivera,

The best way: Don't ;-)
Click to expand...

There is one case where using tab stops might be better than using
tables.

If you have 100000 rows, tables may fail, but tabbed paragraphs will
work fine.

Other than that, most people will find tables easier to deal with.

Bob S
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

Well, it depends what you're using the tab stops for. If you're creating a
table, I would agree that a table is best, but there are many uses for tab
stops in material that is not tabular.
 
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