Format Menu

Inspector…: displays a floating panel with controls to adjust many aspects of the document’s text (fonts, paragraph styles, etc.).

Font: changes the font family of the selected text (or just the typing attributes if no text is selected) to the font family selected from the drop-down list. Select ‘Preview Fonts in Menu’ to see a graphical representation of the fonts in the list (this takes a second or two to load the first time the list is selected after launching Bean).

Style: changes the font style of the selected text (or just the typing attributes if no text is selected) to the font style selected from the drop-down list. Note that not every font has every style, and that some have many more styles available than others.

Size: adjusts the size of the font in the selected text (or just the typing attributes if no text is selected). The increment buttons increase or decrease the font size by one point.

Preview Fonts in Menu: select to see a graphical representation of the active fonts on your system in the Font list of the inspector.

Alignment: sets the alignment style of selected paragraphs (works on whole paragraphs).

Highlight: sets the highlight color of selected text.

Spacing

Character: adjusts the spacing between characters of selected text only; the ‘Default’ button returns character spacing to a value of 0.0 (which is default spacing). A line spacing of 1.2 is pleasing to the eye.

Line: adjusts the amount of line spacing for the selected paragraphs; the ‘Default’ button returns the line spacing to the value set by the user in Preferences > Style > Line Spacing.

Inter-line: finely adjusts the amount of spacing between lines (that is, small amounts of spacing are added in addition to the more coarse Line Spacing).

Before Paragraph: adjusts the amount of spacing that precedes individual paragraphs.

After Paragraph: adjusts the amount of spacing that follows individual paragraphs.

Indent

First Line: adjusts the amount of indention of the first line of the selected paragraphs. When the Option key is held down, the Left indent control adjusts in unison with the First Line indent control.

Left: adjusts the amount of indention from the left margin of the selected paragraphs. When the Option key is held down, the First Line indent control adjusts in unison with the Left indent control.

Right: adjusts the amount of indention from the right margin of the selected paragraphs.

Force Line Height

At Least: sets the minimum amount of line height allowed for the selected paragraphs.

At Most: sets the maximum amount of line height allowed for the selected paragraphs.

Default: disables minimum and maximum allowed line heights for selected paragraphs.

Margins…: displays a sheet which allows the user to change the size of each of the four margins for the current document (changes affect the whole document). For long documents (hundreds of pages) a pause may occur as the document repaginates. The smallest margin allowed is 1/10th of an inch; the largest margin allowed is 6 inches (or metric equivalent). Note that a very small margin can crowd out the document's header and footer.

Tab Stop…: displays a sheet which allows the user to add tab stops to affect the currently selected text.

Tab Alignment Type: Left Tab Stop causes text to left align at the tab stop; Right Tab Stop causes text to right align at the tab stop; Center Tab Stop causes text to center align at the tab stop; Decimal Tab Stop causes text (usually numbers) containing the decimal mark to align so that the decimal is below the tab stop.

Note that tab stops can be useful for combining two or more different types of alignment (which usually affect whole paragraphs) on one line. This is, in fact, how the header option which displays the file location on the left and the date on the right is accomplished.

You can change the tab alignment type for a tab stop that is already in the ruler by double-clicking or option-clicking it (after selecting the paragraphs to change).

Left: text is left-aligned for the selected paragraphs.

Center: text is center-aligned for the selected paragraphs.

Right: text is right-aligned for the selected paragraphs.

Justify: text is justified (aligned to both the left and right margins) for the selected paragraphs. Allowing hyphenation (Format > Paragraph > Allow Hyphenation) can make justified text appear much more attractive.

Columns…: displays a sheet which allows the user to change the number of columns per page (from 1 to 5), as well as the size of the gutter between the columns (5-40 pts). For long documents, a pause may occur after selecting 'Apply' while the document repaginates. The columns setting effects the entire document (one document cannot have two sections with different column settings). Note: columns are Bean-only (they won't appear when the document is opened in other applications).

Header/Footer…: displays a sheet with two controls. 'Lock header/footer style' freezes the current header/footer settings for that document and saves them with it. The 'Show Header/Footer Preferences' button will reveal the Bean Preferences > Printing pane, which contains the header and footer controls. These controls effect all documents except those with locked header and footer styles.

Line Spacing

Single: selected paragraphs are single-spaced.

1.2: selected paragraphs are line-spaced an amount commonly considered the most readable for most fonts.

1.5: selected paragraphs are line-spaced an amount between single-spaced and double-spaced.

Double: selected paragraphs are double-spaced.

Highlight text: changes the background color of selected text. Colors provided are Yellow, Orange, Pink, Blue, Green. ‘None’ removes highlighting from selected text. Note that you can highlight text using any color with the color panel (also known as the color picker): select the text, then press and hold Option+Shift while choosing a color in the color panel.

Paragraph

Allow Hyphenation: allows automatic hyphenation to occur in the selected paragraphs. Justified text often looks better (more evenly distributed) with hyphenation enabled. Note: OS X provides a hyphenation dictionary for English only.

Right to Left Direction: changes the writing direction to right to left for the selected paragraphs. Useful for when you are mixing paragraphs of left to right languages (English, French, German, Spanish) with right to left languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Urdu). You can Ctrl+click on any text in a document to call up a contextual menu, which includes the Writing Direction menu.

List

Marker: causes the selected text to become a list. You choose the marker type from the drop-down box in the sheet. List markers can be ordinal or graphical bullets. Upon pressing OK the list is created. You can also start a new text list without taking your hands off the keyboard by pressing Option-Tab. The 'Prepend enclosing list marker' checkbox in the Format > List > Marker... sheet allows the formatting of lists like so:

1. first item

1.1 first sub-item

1.2 second sub-item

2. second item

Numbered: causes the selected text to become a numbered list.

Bulleted: causes the selected text to become a bulleted list.

Indent: increases the level of the selected list items by one. The Tab key also does this if the insertion point is situated within a list item. To actually insert a tab character within a list item (rather than increasing the list level), use the key combination Ctrl+Alt+Tab (OS X 10.5+ only), or select Insert > Tab from the context menu.

Un-indent: decreases the level of the seleceted list items by one. The combination Shift+Tab also does this if the insertion point is situated within a list item.

Move up: causes a list item to swap places with the list item just above it; that is, it moves the list item one position north in the list.

Move down: causes a list item to swap places with the list item just below it; that is, it moves the list item one position down in the list.

Table…: creates a text table around the selected text and causes the OS X standard table control panel to display. You can nest tables, hide cell borders, and change the background colors of text blocks within table cells to achieve various effects (such as a box around text). The text table function is slightly flakey. Under Tiger, adjusting a table divider can cause it to resize uncontrollably. You can force a mis-behaving table to redraw correctly by selecting a line of text above the beginning of the table, then press the Return key followed by the Delete key. While this problem was fixed in Leopard, other problems were introduced (such as un-editable areas of text, rdar://5759577). Note that for both Tiger and Leopard, tables in text copied from web browsers can sometimes cause inappropriate page breaks and display problems (rdar://5650712). You can remove problem tables from selected text using Edit > Remove > Selected Text Tables.

Link…: allows the user to embed a live hyperlink within selected text. Be sure to choose the correct type of link prefix by selecting the appropriate radio button (Web, File, Email, None). For instance, www.google.com is not a complete URL address unless the Web option is selected with it (so that the link becomes http://www.google.com).

Use Smart Quotes: enables or disables the use of Smart Quotes (curvy opening and closing quotation marks, or languages specific quotation marks).