FrameMaker Tips

Controlling Line Breaks

Here are some handy tips to clean up your paragraphs. These also work with text in table cells (i.e. IPC parts tables).

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Category: Using FrameMaker

Relevance: All Documents

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“Avoid splitting up task reference over two lines.”

Incorrect:

1. Obey all the electrical/electronic safety precautions (AMM TASK 24-
   00-00-910-801).

Correct:

1. Obey all the electrical/electronic safety precautions
   (AMM TASK 24-00-00-910-801).

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Non-breaking hyphens

To avoid splitting a task reference or an ATA number, replace a standard hyphen with a non-breaking hyphen:

Esc hyphen h

Translation: Press and release the ESC key (escape), then – (hyphen), then h

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Non-breaking spaces

To keep two words together on the same line, replace a standard space with a non-breaking space:

Ctrl + space

Translation: Hold down Ctrl (control) while pressing the space bar

When text symbols are turned on, the non-breaking space appears as shown below:

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Tip!

Use non-breaking spaces and/or non-breaking hyphens instead of a soft return to control line breaks in a justified paragraph.

If a paragraph’s alignment is set to “Justified” (aligned along both the left and right margins), the broken line does not follow justification rules, it acts as if you used a standard return. This makes an ugly and confusing paragraph!

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Paragraph Samples

Uncorrected paragraph:

Paragraph corrected using soft return (Ugly!):

Corrected paragraph using non-breaking hyphen and non-breaking space (Better!):

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Note

If a task is referenced in a procedural step that is only two lines long, it’s okay to use a soft return instead of non-breaking characters.

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Procedure Samples

Corrected using non-breaking spaces (Ugly!):

Corrected using a soft return (Better!):