Paragraph Formatting dialog

The Paragraph formatting controls how the selected paragraph is formatted. It is accessed by placing the cursor within a paragraph then going in the Format menu, then Paragraph...

Formats Tab

  • General group:
    • Line-height: Specify the height of each line in the element's text, in measure or percentage. Note that this is not spacing between lines, but rather the complete height of the line itself including the text. Equivalent to the line-heightproperty.
    • Align: Select how text should be aligned, such asleft,center,rightorjustify. Equivalent to thealignproperty.
    • First Indent: Specify the indentation of the first line of each paragraph in the element. Equivalent to thetext-indentproperty.
    • Display: Select how to display the element. This can also be used to hide an element completely using thenoneoption. See CSS Display. Equivalent to thedisplayproperty.
    • Direction: Select in which direction text should be displayed (ltr, rtl, auto). Useful for certain languages such as arabic, hebrew, etc. Equivalent to the dir HTML attribute.
  • Breaks group:
    • Before: Specifies how to handle page breaks before the element. Equivalent to the page-break-before property.
    • Inside: Specifies whether to accept page breaks within the paragraph. Equivalent to the page-break-inside property.
    • After: Specifies how to handle page breaks after the element. Equivalent to the page-break-after property.
    • Widows: Specifies how to handle widows within the paragraph (lines appearing alone on the next page if the paragraph does not fit on the current one). Equivalent to the widows property. Widows and orphans are ignored if the page-break-inside property is set to avoid.
    • Orphans: Specifies how to handle orphans within the paragraph (lines appearing alone at the end of a page if the paragraph does not fit on the current one). Equivalent to the orphans property.
For more information on page breaks, widows and orphans, see the W3 Paged Media reference.

Spacing Tab

  • Padding group: Defines padding (spacing inside the element) in measure or percentage:
    • All sides: Check to set all padding to use the Top value. Equivalent to the CSS padding property.
    • Top, Left, Bottom, Right: Set padding for each side. Equivalent to the CSS padding-left, padding-top, padding-right and padding-bottom properties.
  • Margin group: Defines margins (spacing outside the element) in measure or percentage:
    • All sides: Check to set all margins to use the Top value. Equivalent to the marginproperty.
    • Top, Left, Bottom, Right: Set the margin for each side. Equivalent to the margin-left,margin-top,margin-rightandmargin-bottomproperties.

Border Tab

  • Same for all sides: Defines the border properties for all sides using the Top properties. Equivalent to the borderproperty.
  • Top, Left, Bottom, Right: Each group defines the following properties:
    • Width: Specify the thickness of the border. Equivalent to the border-widthproperty.
    • Style: Specify the style of the border such as solid, dashed or dotted. Equivalent to the border-styleproperty.
    • Color: Specify the color of the border.  The color value must be a valid HTML Color Name, or a valid HTML Hex Color. Equivalent to the border-colorproperty.