Using RunIn Paragraph to Create Multi-Column Arrays

[Dan Emory <danemory@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Shown below are two typical course description entries in a college course
guide, preceded by the page running header.

Subject  Title                         >                    Credit Hrs
         Description 
         
ACCT101  Introductory Accountancy I.........................1.0-3.0
         This course covers concepts, software, principles, and practices, 
         including the preparation and interpretation of financial
         reports, record keeping procedure, and internal controls.

NUAN453	 Physiological Variables & Responses III: Pediatric,
         Obstetrics & Pediatrics............................3.0
         Study of health seeking behaviors and intervening variables with 
         special consideration of the anatomy, physiology, and 
         pathophysiorology of the pediatric and obstetric, endocrine, and 
         geriatric patient. Focus will be on the integration of this 
         information into the nurse anesthesia care to support the health 
         seeking behaviors of these patients.

REQUIREMENTS
The subject code, the title, and the credit hrs text in the first line are
all in bold type, but the leader line between the title and credit hrs
columns is not bold. Note also (as shown in the second entry above) that 
the title is not allowed to encroach on the Credit Hrs column, and, if it
overflows to a second line, so must the leader line, and the data in the
Credit Hrs column.

For reasons I won't go into here, it was not feasible to put these listings
into a FrameMaker table.

IMPLEMENTATION
I defined four paragraph tags, as follows:
        Subj/Title - This style is a bold run-in paragraph, with no
        defaault punctuation. The Left Indent is set to 0.0, and
        the Next Indent is set to 0.5". The right indent is set so the
        title text cannot encroach on the Credit Hrs column.  A left tab
        stop is set at 0.5" to separate the subject code from the title.
        The Next Paragraph is set to "Leader."

        Leader: - This style is an unbolded run-in paragraph. The default
        punctuation at the end of the paragraph specifies a tab (\t).
        The left tab stop with leader is set at 2.8" so that the leader
        ends one character position before the start of the Credit Hrs
        column. The Next Paragraph is set to "CreditHrs."

        CreditHrs - Tnis style is a bold normal (i.e., non-run-in)
        paragraph. The Left Indent is set to 0.0, and the Next Indent
        is set so that, if a line overflow occurs, the overflow line
        will line up with the first line. The Next Paragraph is set to
        "Descrip."

        Descrip - This style is an unbolded normal paragraph used
        for the description that spans the second and third columns
        below the Sutject/Title/Credit Hrs line. The Left and Next
        Indents are set to 0.5". The Next Paragraph is set to
        "Subj/Title."

With this setup, the line-by-line paragraph arrangement for each course 
description entry is as follows:

Subj/Title-Leader-CreditHrs
        Descrip

The "Leader" paragraph is empty, but its default punctuation of a tab 
creates the unbolded leader line between the end of the title text and the
beginning of the Credit Hrs text. If the text of the title in the Subj/Title
paragraph exceeds the right limit set by the right indent, it 
overflows to a second line, indented 0.5", carrying with it the Tab and
CreditHrs paragraphs.

DISCUSSION
This implementation works for the case where the length of the subject code
in the first column never exceeds the position of the 0.5" tab stop in the
Subj/Title paragraph. If either (or both) the Subj/Title or CreditHrs
paragraphs overflow, their second line will be aligned with the first line
of the title or the Credit Hrs, respectively.

Note also that, because of the Next Paragraph settings in each of the four
paragraph styles, the user simply types the subject code, hits the Tab key,
types the title, hits the Return key twice, types the credit hours text,
hits the Return key again, types the description text, and, finally, hits
the Return key again to start the next entry.

Dan Emory
Dan Emory & Associates
FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design
and Database Publishing Specialists

Voice/Fax: 949-722-8971
E-Mail: danemory@primenet.com
10044 Adams Ave. #208
Huntington Beach, CA 92646


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