Is there any way to indent a chunk of text using the keyboard? I know the style for block quotes does this and it would also be possible using the ruler to move the whole margin for that section but I’m used to selecting a paragraph and pressing tab to indent it and shift tab to move it back out. I know this works beautifully in the outline/list mode, but I’d like to be able to use it when drafting as well. It helps me informally create a hierarchy.
Right now if you select a block of text and press tab it deletes all the text. Is there a setting I can change?
You can select the text and use option-tab to indent as a list, but that gives you a bullet and isn’t a “clean” ruler indent the way the block quote formatting is (which is just the ruler setting saved for quick application). It will allow you to keep indenting, though, to set different levels, and if that’s sufficient you can also always just quickly remove the bullet when you’re finished by doing a find/replace and pasting the bullet and surrounding space into the “find” field, and then using the same thing for the “replace” but with a blank space substituted for the bullet.
The other (possibly better, depending on the results you want) quick option is to set a keyboard shortcut to the block quote preset and another to the body preset so you can quickly jump from one to another while you’re typing. Modify each of the presets to appear how you want by setting up a chunk of text in the Editor the way you like it, clicking in it and selecting Format>Formatting>Redefine Preset from Selection. Or just create new ones of your own, if you don’t want to change the defaults.