[scribus] Keep Two Adjacent Words One Space Width Apart

[Gregory Pittman]

On 2/14/21 5:52 PM, Matt Miller wrote:
> My text alignment is "Align Text Justified" but there are some places where I'd like two particular adjacent words to stay exactly one space-width apart, while the rest of the text in that paragraph is justified.  So far the only workaround I've found is to select the two words and set "Manual Tracking" to whatever negative percent value looks good.  I have many places where I'd like this effect, and manual tweaking is a lot of work.  The negative percent I need is different in each case depending on how justification has changed the word spacing of that particular line, so I'm not seeing how to script this.
> 
> I think it would be ideal if there were some character that printed as a space but was not considered a word delimiter by the justification algorithm.  I'm open to using any Unicode character out there.  In all cases where I need this effect the two words in question would be the first two words of the Scribus paragraph.
> 
> My document is the Bible in traditional two-column pages, where each verse (except the first verse of a chapter) has the verse number as its first word.  If that verse is also considered by the Bible to be the start of a new paragraph (which is not a Scribus paragraph since Scribus sees each verse as a distinct paragraph) then the second word of that verse is the pilcrow character, and in that case I want the pilcrow to not float out into the rest of the justified line.  Instead I want the pilcrow to always be one space width away from the verse number.

Hi Matt,

Here's something you might try. Replace the regular space with 2 thin spaces* (or maybe 3, depending on the width you're looking for). When I tried this, these thin spaces were not affected by justification. (I assume you mean full justification)

Greg

* Find this with Insert > Spaces & Breaks > Thin Space. Alternatives might be En Space or Mid Space -- neither of these seem affected by justification.
Once you find something that works you might set up a keyboard shortcut for it.