Forms - Word Processing - Articles about Computing

An interesting thing happens when you try to type a form using your computer. The lines don't line up vertically on the right side. Some are a bit longer. Some are a bit shorter.

This seems to be strange because it looked okay on the screen and you would expect the printout to be exactly the same as the screen.

Well, that's not the case.

However, there are several ways to get around it.

One way is to make a table and on the table, if you notice, all the lines do line up on the right and left side and then you can just make some of the vertical lines invisible and you'll have lines that are okay.

But that's a bit of a kludge, isn't it? There's another way to be able to handle it as well and that is as follows:

Use tab leaders.

Before typing your first line on the page set you tab. Go into Format, Tab and you will see several places to enter information. Where it says where to place the tab give it a position, a tab stop close to the end of the line. That will be where the tab ends.

Now under tab leader select the kind of tab that you want it to be.

Once you've done this you then click on okay and you get out. Type the word on the beginning of the line, say Name and touch tab. It creates a line instead of just going to the tab stop. Hit enter and to say write Address and hit tab. It goes to the exact same spot where the tab stop is. This will continue as long as you hit enter at the end of each line. However, if you go to a different part of the page or if you use an arrow it's going to get out of this region where the tab is and it will no longer have that tab stop. So do remember that it's important to stay within the area or else you'll have to create this tab stop again.

Note to myself: See if it's possible to create a tab leader in another part of the document using the Format Painter.