trouble with paragraph and ending punc

Hi I have an annoying issue w/ a paragraph. When I hit "F4 L" to insert a new line, Catalyst automatically inserts a period at the end of the line and caps the first letter of the next line. I DO NOT WANT THIS and have checked my format; for a "new line paragraph," there is no ending punctuation noted in the format. Any ideas? Thank you!! Johanna Masse

Assuming that you are using the default keyboard map, F4-L is doing the right thing:  It is triggering the automatic punctuation of the then-active paragraph style (the paragraph you're leaving, and this is not controlled by the final punctuation of the <New Line Paragraph>), and the first line of the new paragraph is initial capped.

If you want to start a new line without triggering the auto punctuation and without having the new line initial capped, use the <New Line> paragraph style.  In the default map, that's SHFT-ENTER, and there is no F4 shortcut for it.

 

Johanna:

Richard is 100% correct and has given you a solution that will work.

However, to clarify further (for you and anyone lurking)-- the value for "ending punctuation" in a paragraph style refers to punctuation that will be inserted (if there is no other punctuation written by you) at the end of THAT paragraph, not punctuation that would be inserted for a previous paragraph.  For example, in your Question Paragraph Style, you have ? as the ending punctuation. That means whenever you insert a new paragraph AFTER a Question Paragraph, a ? will be inserted if you have not written any other punctuation at the end of that paragraph.

Therefore, when you press F4-L to insert a New Line Paragraph, you are ending the the previous paragraph and that paragraph style's ending punctuation value is inserted. 

As Richard stated, if you do not use another paragraph style, but instead insert the <New Line> format symbol, you are directing CATalyst to insert a new line within the existing paragraph style, and therefore no ending punctuation would be inserted, as the paragraph has not ended.

Cindi Hartman
Training Program Manager
STENOGRAPH, LLC

Thank you, Richard and Cindi! Cindi, of course you are correct. Duh. I even knew what that ending punc was for; I just spaced out on that one!! I never knew about shift enter, so thanks!!

Cindy,

Along the same lines, I created an editing macro called "paragraph within question."   When I press `, I will get a new paragraph that is indented exactly where it should be:  not under the Q (symbol position) but under the first word of the question (first-line indent). 

It looks and is perfect in Catalyst.  However, it is not perfect in the ASCII.  It comes out 1 space to the right of where it should be, so instead of being indented, say, 5, it's indented 6.  ONLY ON THE ASCII and not in the Catalyst file.

What's the story do you think?

Marge

Marge:

To be able to answer that, I'd need to know what commands you've recorded within your "paragraph within question" macro.  How is the indentation being created? <New line> plus Tabs? <New line> plus Spaces? <New line> plus a combination of tabs AND spaces?  Some other method?

Cindi Hartman
Training Program Manager
STENOGRAPH, LLC