Leader Tabs

[Maria_Ayala@adobeforums.com]

I've been waiting and waiting for Adobe to add leader tabs to Illustrator and now that they have actually done it, in AI CS, I can't get it to work properly. The leader tab that I am attempting to insert, is the underscore, to make a line for writing on after a subject, such as Name:_______ After a few attempts, following the instructions in the Help section, I got them to appear, but they left a huge gap after the subject: Name: _______________________
I can't get rid of the space.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Maria

[Wade_Zimmerman@adobeforums.com]

Type N a m e : _ then hit the Tab. and now you are fine is that correct?

[Wade_Zimmerman@adobeforums.com]

One more way is to set another tab that is shorter than the space for the name. then the tab at with the leader at the desired location for Name.

[Michael_Gianino@adobeforums.com]

Its possible that Illustrator may work similarly to the way Quark works when it comes to leader tabs. Please feel free to yell at me for using the "Q" word if you like.

The distance the tab has to travel will change with the amount of text on either side of it. It may have a constant right end, such as you would find in a table of contents, but the leader for page 9 would be closer to the left than the leader for page 10, because of the size difference between 9 and 10. On the other side of our TOC, the names of the chapters will probably all have slightly different lengths.

The program will fill the tab area with as many fill characters as will fit in the given area. Because the width of the characters doesn't change, the leader will increase in size incrementally, rather than gradually. It might be 20 characters long, or 21, but not 20.5.

Although it is just a workaround, there is a way to make your left ends closer to the text. If you select just the tab and decrease the tracking, you should come to a point where it gets close enough to suit you. It isn't as good a solution as having the program know how far you want the line to come to the text by itself, and may seem that you aren't gaining an advantage over drawing lines with the pen tool, but it should work.

Sorry I don't have better news.