Tab behavior under 4.3 changed

[Alan]

When Atlantis version 4.3 was released I started changing my default font from Tahoma to Noto Sans as Atlantis now handled the Noto font family well. As I discovered, Noto Sans characters are slightly wider than Tahoma. I recently had some time free and decided to correct 1 specific occurrence caused by wider characters, specifically it looked like there was no space between 2 words separated by a tab when I had set it up to look like a regular blank space was there (or a close approximation). I added a slight amount to the second tabs value and the result looked the same. I then added an extreme number to the value and the result was the same. I have found out that adding a second tab causes the look I want. What I am trying to do is have TV episode titles line up on the left within the first line of multiple paragraphs so it is easy to scan down to find the episode I am interested in. I want words like A, An, and The to be spaced approximately a blank space to the left in these titles from the rest of the episode title. Before 4.3 I did this by using a right tab at 103 points before A, An, and The and then follow those articles by a left tab at 106 points, if there was no article in the title then a double tab preceded the title. That does not work the same now and if there is an article in the title a double tab is required after the article to get it to look correct instead of the single tab that worked previously. What has changed with what I am doing?

Alan

[admin]

Could you please post a short test document?

[Alan]

I have attached the file with 1 example. The previous behavior shown with the paragraph highlighted in yellow at the beginning and with episode title The Arizona looks correct with a short gap caused by a tab between The and Arizona. The next paragraph with the beginning pink highlight has no gap between The and Artful Dodger when I expected it to have one. This is one example of my attempts to change the gap width to accommodate the new font I am using (Noto Sans). All the episode paragraphs have 2 tabs used to form the episode title with the alignment I want.

Alan

[admin]

On my systems, your document displays in this way:



Note that the tab stop positions are not the same for the whole document. You can use the Reveal formatting panel of the Control Board to examine the tab formatting.

[Alan]

Your system is working like I expected mine to work. I deliberately put the revised paragraph style after the pre-4.3 style to show how it looked before changing a paragraph style slightly to improve the look, that is when the space disappeared. I have attached a Snip to show how it looks on my computer. Is there anything I can look at to help determine why a changed paragraph style does not render properly on my computer? A Ctrl+z will revert a paragraph style change back to looking correct.

Alan

[admin]

It would be good to have special symbols displaying on your screen capture, as well as the tab stop positions on the ruler that correspond to the “artful dodger” paragraph.

Basing a paragraph line’s layout on supernarrow tab characters is not very reliable. But if your above screen capture displays the “Tabs 20230705.rtf” document from your above attachment, and you are using the latest beta version of Atlantis, I still do not understand why things get rendered so differently on our systems. Maybe you have a different version of the Noto Sans font. Please open the Noto Sans font with the Windows Control Panel. What version is reported? The version of the Noto Sans font on my systems:

Version 2.005; ttfautohint (v1.8.3) -l 8 -r 50 -G 200 -x 14 -D latn -f none -a qsq - X ""

[Alan]

I have attached a new Snip with what you wanted. Both are of that same file as you have.
I think it is the latest Beta (it is a9) though it has been a couple of days since I checked for an update.
I went to Control Panel > Fonts > Noto Sans > Noto Sans Regular > Properties to find I have file version 2.007. Nowhere did I see a string like you showed.

Alan

[admin]

To make the special symbols visible in Atlantis, you should enable the “View | Special Symbols” mode. Also there is no horizontal ruler with the tab stop marks on your above screen capture.

Have you tried switching to a different rendering mode (the new option on the “General” tab of the “Tools | Options...” dialog)? Does it make any difference?

Please choose the “Tools | Factory Settings...” menu command of Atlantis, and launch a test copy of Atlantis with the factory settings. Open your “Tabs 20230705.rtf”. Do you still get a wrong display under the factory settings?

If you know how to do it, could you please email your entire Noto Sans font family to support@atlantiswordprocessor.com.

[Alan]

Hi admin,
I have emailed the font family files that I installed on my computer to you.

Todays attached Snip now has the ruler and special symbols showing. The insert point is in the mal-displaying paragraph (at the end of the first line) so the ruler is showing that paragraph's tabs.

Running under Factory Settings does not change the tab display, it is still wrong for one paragraph.

I have not tried changing the rendering mode. I will play with it later when I have some free time.

Alan

[admin]

Installed your fonts. No change on my system. So it is not about the font version.

What is your Windows text size? Is it 225%?

[admin]

Finally reproduced this after setting "text size" to 225%. Fixed in the latest build of 4.3.2 (beta). Please check for updates. Thanks.

[Robert]

Hi Alan,
I have created a document exemplifying the rational use of tab stops and tab characters. See attached "Tab Behavior.rtf".
If you press Ctrl+A, then bring up the "Tabs" dialog ("Format | Tabs…"), you'll see the left-aligned tab stop values:



If you look at the alignment of each tab stop, you'll see that each has a simple basic left alignment. All the tab stops are positioned from left to right as is the text in your document. They make sure that a press on the tab key will align your text vertically as expected.
In other words, your document original tab formatting is overly complicated. It contains a mix of left, right, and decimal tab stops. There is no need for this. Left-aligned tab stops are all that you need to achieve the vertical columnar alignment that you want.
HTH.
Robert

[Alan]

Hi Robert,
The reason I mix left and right tabs is to get the look of titles entered without tabs yet the post article (A, An, The, etc.) title which I alphabetize by are left aligned on the first line of the paragraph. Done this way I can scan a page of episodes by eye in several seconds to find the one I want or find it is not listed. This will not work with left only tabs as shown in your example by the title … and Executioner which should align on the word and but that word is now shifted to the right and my visual scan will miss it. If that tab location is restored it leaves a large space which my eye is drawn to and slows down the visual scan. I see no reason why this alignment should not be easily possible nowadays as I have been using it for many years.

Alan

[Alan]

Hi admin,
My Windows text size is set to 200% on the UHD monitor that I use for word processing and to 175% on the UHD main screen. I see the problem on both but the example I made was discovered on the main screen.

I updated and problem now gone on both. Many thanks for your diligent efforts.

Alan

[Robert]

Hi Robert,
The reason I mix left and right tabs is to get the look of titles entered without tabs yet the post article (A, An, The, etc.) title which I alphabetize by are left aligned on the first line of the paragraph. Done this way I can scan a page of episodes by eye in several seconds to find the one I want or find it is not listed. This will not work with left only tabs as shown in your example by the title … and Executioner which should align on the word and but that word is now shifted to the right and my visual scan will miss it. If that tab location is restored it leaves a large space which my eye is drawn to and slows down the visual scan. I see no reason why this alignment should not be easily possible nowadays as I have been using it for many years.

Alan

Correction.
I had placed the ellipsis immediately before "and Executioner" myself manually because I had misinterpreted where you wanted it to align vertically. I have moved the ellipsis where you wanted it. See attached "Tab Behavior (2).rtf".
There is no reason to use decimal tab stops to simulate a space character. Proper values of the left-aligned tab stops are quite enough.

[Robert]

Addendum.
Here is from How can I align entries in a table? : Help : ITS : University of Sussex

A Decimal Tab stop aligns numbers around a decimal point. Without regard to the number of digits, the decimal point remains in the same position. When you use this type of tab stop, you must align the numbers around a decimal character.

[admin]

My Windows text size is set to 200% on the UHD monitor that I use for word processing and to 175% on the UHD main screen.

OK, but probably your screen DPI is 225% of the “standard” 96 DPI.

And this issue was not specific to version 4.3.