Text frame formatting (mis)behavior

Dorico
1

Hi! I’ve gained a lot from reading the forum over the past year, but this is my first question.

I am having issues with the options in the inspector for text frames. In the “Text” section, there are choices for Padding, Border, Vertical Alignment, and Tab Stops, but changing them results in either no effect (in the case of tab stops) or the effect does not persist. I noticed this originally in a project with a couple dozen lead sheets, but have since reproduced it in a fresh project. Here is what I have tried:

  1. Start a new score, add a single instrument.
  2. Add a text frame, or use an existing text frame, either on a master page on in Engrave mode.
  3. Adjust padding and/or add a border to the text frame.
  4. Edit the text frame by adding text or a line break.
  5. The formatting reverts to default! No padding, no border.

The options for tab stops (left/center/right) in the same Text panel of the Inspector also seem to have no effect on tabs or the text.

For what it’s worth, I’ve tried it on two different Macs, though both are running 10.13.6.

2

Welcome to (actively posting on) the forum, James, and thanks for reporting this. We’re aware of this problem, and it’s on our backlog of things to address. (It has been reported before, especially with regard to the vertical alignment property, which also gets reset after you edit text in the frame.)

The tab stop properties do work, but they literally affect only the first three tabs you create (i.e. the left tab stop is the first one, the centre one is the second, and the right is the third); after the first three tab stops, you get all subsequent tab stops at a fixed value.

3

…and note that if you set the border and/or padding AFTER editing the text, the border/padding will remain intact until you then edit the text again.

4

Thanks for the answers!

I think I understand the tab stops now. They align the text left/center/right, but only with the first three tabs in a line. I see that they reset as well under the same conditions as vertical alignment, padding, and the border, so I suppose for now I’ll just have to complete those edits after I’m certain I’m done with the text!

I also messed around with this some more and found that edited alignment/border/padding was retained after editing text on one of the original master pages if the text in that frame was edited first. An odd bug!