iCalamus > Reference > Inspectors > Text Ruler inspector Index

Add text ruler

If you want to create a new text ruler, click on the [+] button in the bottom left of the Text Ruler inspector. The following dialog opens where you can adjust parameters for this text ruler.

The parameters of the dialog are described below:

Text Ruler Name

Don't forget to give a meaningful name to this text ruler. You can sort all listed text rulers by different methods afterwards.

Label

If you like to organize things by colors, use color labels for your text rulers, e.g. to group all centered text rulers as red text rulers. The colors are then shown in the Text Ruler inspector's text ruler list.

Alignment

Simply click one of the available four icons to align text accordingly.

Direction

If you're writing texts in e.g. Arabic, you might want to change the default writing direction from Left-to-Right to Right-to-Left here. This automatically swaps the alignment settings, too.

Line Height

Choose your desired line height type from the popup menu. There are three types available which are described below:

Variable	Choose this line height type if you don't care about line heights at all. Then the effective line heights will mainly depend on the chosen font heights. Use the [multiple times] option if you want to multiply the line heights in a quick and simple way.
Exactly	If you choose this line height type, all lines should have the same height. Text glyphs which are larger than this value might overlap. The [Exactly] type does not support a multiply factor for line heights; it is automatically reset to 1.0 in this type.
At least	If all text lines should have a minimum defined line height, choose this type. If you don't activate the [maximum] option, larger line heights will mainly depend on the chosen font heights. If you activate the [maximum] option, you can define a maximum line height (which can never be lower than the least line height). Use the [multiple times] option if you want to multiply the line heights in a quick and simple way. Please keep in mind that the maximum value might even limit the multiply factor.

Text Style

Text styles in the text ruler are paragraph styles which basically refer to at least one paragraph of text. You can even assign an existing text style to a paragraph style here. By default, no text style is assigned.

Language

A paragraph formatting method is controlled by a text ruler. Here you can even assign a preferred language which should be used (for, e.g. hyphenation and spell checking), in all paragraphs which use this text ruler.

Paragraph Indents

Text lines in a paragraph don't have to strictly start at the left border of the text frame. Use indents to add space to your text layout, e.g. in the first line of a new paragraph. Three indent values can be assigned here. When at least one paragraph indent (or spacing) value is not Null, a tiny [Clear] button is visible. A click on this button resets all paragraph indent (and spacing) values to Null at once.

Spacings

You can define additional spacings between lines in a paragraph, before new paragraphs, and after paragraphs. All these values add to the defined line heights. When at least one spacing (or paragraph indent) value is not Null, a tiny [Clear] button is visible. A click on this button resets all spacing (and paragraph indent) values to Null at once.

Tabulators

Each new text ruler comes with a default set of tabulators (12 left-aligned tabulators at a distance ot 28 pt each). In this section of the dialog you can edit, add, and remove, tabulators. Double-click on a tabulator position to edit its value. Click on a tabulator type to change its alignment from a popup menu. Click the [+] button to add new tabulators. When a tabulator is selected, you can remove it by a click on the [–] button. If you want to remove all available tabulators at once, click on the tiny [Clear] button.