Tab problems in text story

I don't seem to be having any luck with getting tabs to work. Moreover, they disappear at every paragraph, forcing me to block the whole story in order to set a tab that lasts throughout. Also, when I try to create a left-aligned tab by clicking on that goody to the left circled by red in the illustration, it seems to have no effect on either already existing tabs or subsequently-created tabs, not that user-defined tabs seem to have any effect at all on text layout.

If this is user error (quite likely, I fear), could someone point me in the direction of a good tutorial or something? I seem to have trouble sorting through a bazillion stems of hay in search for that golden needle.

Can anyone help Alan re this? Text & tab settings aren't my strongpoint.

Assuming that Alan has gone to "tabs" in the help files and read the section on "Tabs, Margins and Indents" then without doing some experimenting, I have nothing to add at this point.

Click the triangle to set the tab type, and click the ruler to set the location. It seems to work fine for me. You also have to press tab before typing to send the text to the tab stop after every "Enter" (Obviously, I know - but I just confused myself when I hit enter whilst experimenting).

Sorry Alan, but it seems to work fine for me.

From what I can see it looks more like unfamiarity with computer tabs. The little button off to the left of the text story, lets you cycle thrue which type of tabs you can use. Left aligned, right aligned or center align. The tab marked with the black on the left is the left aligned tab, the one with the right side in black is the right aligned tab, the transparent triangle is the center aligned tab.

click and drag with the text tool to create the width of your text story. click on the text ruller to place whichever type of tab you have selected on the line. click back on your line and press tab, you will be able to start typing at the place you added the tab.

If you type enough to have a new line, then add more tabs, the new tabs will effect that line and onward. To clear a tab just click on the tab in the ruller and drag it off the ruler. To move/adjust the position of a tab, then just click and drag. The left, right margin and the hanging indent can be adjusted by clicking them and draging them... You can change the everything about a text story except run a spell check... :)

See attached file...

Thanks to everyone and the suggestions. I read all your comments and downloaded the file John so kindly provided (thanks for going to the trouble of creating it).

I reread the help files and the product manual (which I actually did before posting here).

After I posted here, I put Sammy to bed (Sammy is my computer's name) and went to bed myself. When I got up, I tried all that stuff, and, lo and behold, it worked this time. I don't know how to account for the difference. Either my installation was a bit wonky, I was tired and thought I had done everything correctly but hadn't, or Sammy just felt a bit ornery and decided to pick on me.

Anyhow, thanks again for the feedback. :)

I know exactly what you mean. I usually don't name my 'puters, but if I did it probably wouldn't be a name I could publish here... not without alot of "$@###^@#$%$%*$&*" :)

Hopefully I helped clear things up a bit for you.