Word 2013 ignores tab stops beyond right indent

Often it is useful to set a right tab stop beyond the right indent of the page, for example, in a table of contents:

 

1. abc def ghk

qwe rty...............................12

 

Here, ghk breaks (wraps around) on the indent, but the page number, 12, separated from rty by a tab,  extends beyond it. This way, the text or the chapter title stays away from the number.

 

In Word 2010, this works in both Print and Draft Layouts. In Word 2013, the Draft Layout looks good, but the Print Layout moves the tab stop down to the right indent.

 

Moreover, dragging the tab stop on the ruler anywhere to the right of the right indent snaps it immediately to the right indent on both layouts. It ends up looking like this:

 

1. abc def ghk

qwe rty...........12

 

or even

 

1. poi uyt rew.12

 

Converting this file to PDF in preserves the bad formatting. What's going on? Why no tabbing beyond the right indent?

Answer
Answer

To add to what Doug has said, the initial "bug" reported to the product team was that Word no longer honors tab stops beyond the right margin. This does break some older documents (if converted to the new format), but it is not a showstopper provided that a right indent can be used. The fact that tabs to the right of a right indent are also ineffective is in fact a major bug and must be fixed with a hotfix. If no hotfix is forthcoming, then Microsoft is going to have a major problem, assuming that adoption will be much slower as long as such a bug is not fixed.

 

Since the product group will be preoccupied with the MVP Summit for the next few days, I don't expect any reaction before the end of the week, but we will hope for a favorable response.

Microsoft MVP (Word) since 1999
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://ssbarnhill.com
http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com
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Last updated July 29, 2023 Views 9,064 Applies to: