Hello Andre:

I disagree with your comments regarding tabs in Microsoft Word. Tabs are
controlled by a Tab stop dialog which is accessed within the format
paragraph dialog (Alt+t). Tabs are not based on screen and printer
resolution. Tab stops are based on units of measurement (here in the US, the
default is a tab stop at every half inch). One can modify the tab stops on a
paragraph by paragraph basis, allowing for precise alignment. However, in
most cases, like tabular data, tables may be a more preferred method of
aligning various columns of text. While I agree that using tabs in general
is a practice that should be avoided, there are many places where tabs are
quite beneficial.

Word defines many different types of tab stops
. Left Tab : Left-aligns the text at the tab stop.
. Center Tab : Centers the text around the tab stop.
. Right Tab : Right-aligns the text at the tab stop.
. Decimal Tab : Aligns decimal numbers using the decimal point.
. Bar Tab : Draws a vertical line on the document.

Imagine that you want to create a header or footer in your document and you
have three fields to display (document title, page number, and version).
Using the various types of tab stops, you can left align the title, center
the page number, and right-align the version, all in one line. While you can
do this with a table, a table introduces arbitrary widths to the fields that
are not encountered when using tab stops.

To understand Word and paragraphs, Word identifies anything ending with a
Return (Enter) as a paragraph. This includes a block of text, a single item
in a list, a heading or title, and even a blank line. Word offers a plethora
of items that can be customized on a font and paragraph basis, including
font size, color, style (bold, italic, strikethrough, etc.) and paragraph
indent or outdent, paragraph spacing, numbers and bullets, etc. ?The real
key is that if one is serious about using Word in a professional
environment, modifying individual paragraphs or performing a select all and
applying formatting changes is a abysmal process. Word provides a powerful
feature known as styles accessible from the Home ribbon. Many Word documents
are composed of text that are formatted differently based upon their intent.
For example, captions for tables and figures, bulleted and numbered lists,
hierarchal lists, heading, table of contents, etc. Selecting all and
performing holistic paragraph and font changes can dramatically impact a
document. Styles provide a way to compartmentalize changes to a particular
feature and can be used to quickly modify the look and feel of a document
without impacting any of its structure. Imagine you are tasked with changing
the font of only paragraphs in a document (and not any of the captions,
table of content entries, heading, or title). On a one page document, this
is probably not difficult, but on a 300 page document, this would be a
daunting task if one had to go and modify every paragraph that contained
content. If all those paragraphs were the same style, a single change to the
style would change the entire document. NVA provides a mechanism to announce
styles in its Document formatting dialog (NVDA + Alt + d).

There are many good references on the web describing how to use styles in
Word, and many books devote one or more chapters to the topic. I will not
try to repeat that information here, but am willing to answer individual
questions. The real key to learning the intricacies of Word is a willingness
to experiment and explore that vast features offered and to ask Google,
Bing, or this group when you get stuck. Be sure, when asking Google or Bing,
that you add the words screen reader (or screen magnifier) as part of your
search.

Regards, rick.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On
Behalf Of Andre Polykanine via
Sent: Wednesday, September 9, 2020 6:05 PM
To: Chelsea <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [office-accessibility] Margin and paragraph questions regarding
Word

Hi Chelsea,
Enter yes, but not Tab.
Enter ?does ?separate one paragraph from another, that's true. but the size
of a tab is changeable even on one system, and it does depend on screen
resolution, printer's DPI and so on and so forth. That's why I told ?you
not ?to ?use ?tabs ?nor ?spaces anywhere when formatting is involved.


--
With best regards,
Andre
Munich, Germany
Skype: menelion_elensule
Twitter (English only): @AndrePolykanine


------------ Original message ------------
From: Chelsea <Lady.arwen15@...>
To: [email protected]
Date created: , 11:56:56 PM
Subject: [office-accessibility] Margin and paragraph questions regarding
Word


?????Hi Andre and all,

So how does Word know one paragraph from the other if I'm not supposed
to use tabs or spaces? My editor specifically told me to press enter
followed by tab to get a new paragraph.

Thanks,
Chelsea

On 9/9/20, Andre Polykanine via <andre@...> wrote:

Hello Chelsea,
Please ?please, ?never, ?never ever use tabs or spaces for formatting!
It's ?actually ?the ?first ?commandment ?of a person learning document
formatting.
That ?is ?because ?if you do that, different monitors and/or different
printers will definitely mess the things up.
fortunately, ?Word ?is an extremely powerful software and it offers us
everything what we need here.
If you need to make first line indented by half an inch, open the Home
ribbon, select Paragraph, and then Paragraph... again.
This ?dialog ?is ?what ?you ?need. Here you can see a combo box called
Special. ?Press ?Down ?Arrow ?in ?it until you hear "First Line", then
press ?Tab. In the "By" field enter 0.5 and make sure your measurement
units ?are ?set ?to ?inches ?(if ?not, ?please tell me, I'll guide you
through).
Next. ?If ?you ?want ?to ?align all of the document left (which is the
default ?setting, ?by the way), you may select all by pressing Ctrl+A,
then press Ctrl+L. This is a Word command, but if you use JAWS, you'll
hear "Aligned left". If you hear "Justified", press the keystroke once
more (the recent versions of Word seem to toggle alignment).
If ??Word ??crashes ?upon ?selecting the whole document, size might be
the ?problem, ?yes. ?Then you need to select it part by part and apply
your ?changes. By the way, if it's 1 inch from the left, then probably
you have custom indentation there and you need to go to this Paragraph
dialog again.
And ??lastly, ?the ?difference ?between ?left ?aligned ?documents ?and
justified ?ones ?is ?the ?following: ?When ?you ?align left, the first
letters of your lines are on the same vertical level. When you justify
however (in some languages, for example in Russian, it's called "Align
by width"), Word makes your text so that first letters are on the same
vertical ?level ?and last letters are on the same vertical level. That
can lead to larger spaces between words on shorter lines.
Hope that helps.


???????????????--
With best regards,
Andre
Munich, Germany
Skype: menelion_elensule
Twitter (English only): @AndrePolykanine


------------ Original message ------------
From: Chelsea <Lady.arwen15@...>
To: [email protected]
Date created: , 5:25:15 PM
Subject: [office-accessibility] Margin and paragraph questions regarding
Word


?????Hello,

When formatting an exercise for my potential job, I need to indent the
first line of a new paragraph to 0.5 inches. No problem, just press
Tab, right? Well, when I did that, the person reviewing my work said
the margins got all messed up. When I did an insert F, things sounded
normal, though.

Also, how do I get everything moved over to the left in a document?
When I do an Insert F on another document I'm working on, it says left
indent of 1 inches. It's only part of the file, but I want to select
the whole thing to make it universal. I tried, but MS Word crashes.
It's a big file. Could that be a problem?

And what's the difference between justified and left anyhow?

Thanks,
Chelsea