Adobe Community: How to get solid lines (not dotted) between Indesign CS6 tabs

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1. Peter Spier,

Mar 15, 2013 10:58 AM in reply to Av8rdan

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I like to add a character style to the tab itself that adds an underline to the tab. No leader required.

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2. Av8rdan,

Mar 15, 2013 11:21 AM in reply to Peter Spier

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Peter, thank you...I am blanking on what exactly you are referring to, or how to implement this. I did not know you could add character styles to tabs...sounds like a great solution. Any chance you can post a link to a quick tutorial so I can jump on that and give it a try?

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3. Daniel Flavin,

Mar 15, 2013 11:30 AM in reply to Av8rdan

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This would be a character style for underscore, which could be (nested) within a Paragraph Style.

Without Peter's method, many people might define an Underscore for the Tab Leader

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4. Av8rdan,

Mar 15, 2013 11:34 AM in reply to Daniel Flavin

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Thanks Daniel, I already know about the tab leaders, but that produces a dotted line, not a solid line. I am looking for the exact same thing but with a solid line when it prints or is send to the printer.

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5. Av8rdan,

Mar 15, 2013 11:48 AM in reply to Av8rdan

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RESOLVED, thanks everyone. I just set up two shortcuts for styles, one just an underline, no font, one the font, no underline. Tabs with shortcut 1 produces a solid underline, switch to shortcut 2 which produces text, no underline. Again, thx for the help....

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6. Daniel Flavin,

Mar 15, 2013 11:57 AM in reply to Av8rdan

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It (can) produces a near perfect continuous line, dependent on the font. I have never had it fail me for Hi Resolution imaging; I run plates at 1200 dpi. Desktop printers may produce a less desirable result.

Acrobat Preview

This would suit your situation, Style the Tab Character with Underline, Not underscore

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7. Av8rdan,

Mar 15, 2013 12:10 PM in reply to Daniel Flavin

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Daniel, you are correct! I learned something today. Looks dotted on screen and output thru laser printer, but output as press Q PDF and enlarged, in fact the space between tabs is solid underline.

Thanks!!!

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8. Peter Spier,

Mar 15, 2013 12:12 PM in reply to Daniel Flavin

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I think Daniel may have led you a bit astray by naming the style "underscore" since it has nothing to do with an underscore character. Tabs ar characters, just like a, b, c... and have font attributes, so evn though they are invisibile they can be underlined. By creating a character style that does nothing but turn on underline (and you can customize the weight and position, as well as the stroke style for the underline), then applying that style to the tabs in your form you automatically get a line at each tab you enter, and it adjusts as the tab position and surrounding text are changed.

Daniel suggested using a Nested style, but I suspect if your forms are like mine it's ahrd to predict the number of tabs in a paragraph, so a GREP style might work better. You could use, I think the GREP string [\t~y] to pick up any tab or right indent tab (I love using Right indent tabs in forms), and apply the underline style. I also tend to use a thin space of some sort on either side of the tabs in my forms to keep the line a bit separated from the text on either side (don't add the underline to the spaces).

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9. Av8rdan,

Mar 15, 2013 12:27 PM in reply to Peter Spier

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Guys, using the two shortcuts for a character style with just underline and another for font no underline is working great and fast. Thanks...

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InDesign

How to get solid lines (not dotted) between Indesign CS6 tabs

Mar 15, 2013 10:52 AM

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