Paragraph Formatting dialog
The Paragraph Formatting dialog controls how the selected paragraph is formatted. It is accessed by placing the cursor within a paragraph and then selecting Format > Paragraph on the menu.
All settings in this dialog are in fact CSS properties. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) were originally designed for use with web pages: HTML files. Since Designer templates are HTML files, they are styled with CSS. To learn how to use CSS in the Designer, see Styling and formatting and Styling templates with CSS files. For information about specific properties and their options, see W3Schools CSS Reference.
Click the Advanced button to enter CSS properties and values directly.
The Apply button lets you preview the template with the new settings.
For information about text and how to style it see Text and special characters and Styling text and paragraphs.
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-height
property in CSS. - Align: Select
how text should be aligned, such as
left
,center
,right
orjustify
. Equivalent to thealign
property in CSS. - First Indent:
Specify the indentation of the first line of each paragraph in
the element. Equivalent to the
text-indent
property in CSS. - Display: Select
how to display the element. This can also be used to hide an element
completely using the
none
option. See CSS Display. Equivalent to thedisplay
property. - 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.
- 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
- Breaks group:
- Before: Specifies whether a page break should occur before the paragraph. This is equivalent to the
page-break-before
property in CSS; see CSS page-break-before property for an explanation of the available options. - Inside: Specifies whether a page break is allowed inside the paragraph. Equivalent to the
page-break-inside
property in CSS; see CSS page-break-inside property for an explanation of the available options. - After: Specifies whether a page break should occur after the paragraph. Equivalent to the page-break-after property in CSS; see CSS page-break-after property for an explanation of the available options.
- 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 thepage-break-inside
property is set toavoid
. - 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.
- Before: Specifies whether a page break should occur before the paragraph. This is equivalent to the
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
andpadding-bottom
properties.
- All sides: Check to
set all padding to use the Top value. Equivalent to the CSS
- 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
margin
property. - Top, Left, Bottom, Right:
Set the margin for each side. Equivalent to the
margin-left
,margin-top
,margin-right
andmargin-bottom
properties.
- All sides: Check to
set all margins to use the Top value. Equivalent to the
Border tab
- Same for all sides: Defines
the border properties for all sides using the Top properties. Equivalent
to the
border
property. - Top, Left, Bottom, Right:
Each group defines the following properties:
- Width: Specify the
thickness of the border. Equivalent to the
border-width
property. - Style: Specify the
style of the border such as
solid
,dashed
ordotted
. Equivalent to theborder-style
property. - Color: Specify the
color of the border. select a named color (defined in the Colors Editor) from the drop-down, or click the colored square to open the Color Picker dialog (Color Picker). Alternatively you could type a name or value in the Color field directly. It must be a predefined CSS color name (CSS color names), a hexadecimal color code (HTML Hex Color), an RGB color value, for example
rgb(216,255,170)
or a CMYK color value, for examplecmyk(15%, 0%, 33%, 0%)
. Equivalent to theborder-color
property.
- Width: Specify the
thickness of the border. Equivalent to the