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Mysteriously Moving Margins in Word

In Microsoft Word 2008 (and older versions), if you put your cursor in a paragraph and then move a tab or indent marker in the ruler, the change applies to just that paragraph. If your markers are closely spaced, you may have trouble grabbing the right one, and inadvertently work with tabs when you want to work with indents, or vice-versa. The solution is to hover your mouse over the marker until a yellow tooltip confirms which element you're about to drag.

I recently came to appreciate the importance of waiting for those tooltips: a document mysteriously reset its margins several times while I was under deadline pressure, causing a variety of problems. After several hours of puzzlement, I had my "doh!" moment: I had been dragging a margin marker when I thought I was dragging an indent marker.

When it comes to moving markers in the Word ruler, the moral of the story is always to hover, read, and only then drag.

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22 Jun 1998 | Print Printer-Friendly Version of This Article

The Final Free Frontier

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In brief letters to registered Frontier users last week, UserLand Software announced a charter pricing structure for Frontier 5.1, the soon-to-be-released version of its cross-platform scripting and Web content tool. (See "Frontier 5 Ships" in TidBITS 415.) Through 08-Sep-98, personal users may purchase a one-year licence for $300, commercial users can pay $900 per year for official support options, and partner licenses are available for $500 per month. Licensees will be entitled to new features and updates as they're released during the duration of their subscriptions. According to UserLand, Frontier 5.0.1 will remain available for free.

Although Frontier has been a free product since version 4.0 (see "Frontier Justice" in TidBITS 279), UserLand has made no secret of its intention to return Frontier to commercial status. Nonetheless, UserLand's move has ignited heated debate in the Frontier community, with many users expressing concern that the new pricing structure will erode Frontier's current user base and serve as a barrier to new users. In the meantime, Frontier 5.1 promises a raft of high-end Web publishing features, including an XML parsing and storage system, RPC (Remote Procedure Calling) utilities for distributed computing, integrated update capability via the Internet, and enhanced Web authoring tools for groups.

 

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