The one thing that truly separates the amateurs from the experts in page layout is the control they take over their text. Amateurs are pleased if they can apply simple formatting such as fonts, sizes, alignment, tracking, and so on.
Experts, though, want more from a page-layout program. They want sophisticated control over kerning. This includes the ability to move one character in so that it tucks under the stroke of another.
They want to control how lines are justified within a text frame. This means that if one line looks too crowded and the next has big gaps between the words, the experts tell the program to reapportion the spaces.
The experts also want to work with the newest typefaces that give more choices for how letters look and act together.
These are advanced text effects. Once you apply these features, you move from being an ordinary designer to a typographer.
One of the most sophisticated text effects in InDesign is the ability to apply hanging punctuation to justified text, in which a slight adjustment of the margin creates a more uniform appearance for the edge of the text. Hanging punctuation is applied by setting the optical margin alignment. This moves punctuation characters slightly outside the text margin . In addition, optical margin alignment moves the serifs of letters outside the margin .
Optical margin alignment is set using the Story panel.
To set optical margin adjustment:
InDesign has two ways of composing (laying out) text. Single-line composition looks at the current line and evaluates the best place to break the line or apply hyphenation. Paragraph composition looks at all the text in a paragraph—forward and backward—when it evaluates the best place to break lines. When paragraph composition is turned on, the result is more even spacing for the text and fewer hyphens .
To apply paragraph composition:
Adobe Paragraph Composer is a paragraph attribute and is applied to all the text in a paragraph.
Justification determines how lines fit between margins. (See the sidebar below for information on how justification affects text.) InDesign provides three different ways to control justification: word spacing, letter spacing, and glyph spacing. Word spacing changes the space between words.
• Minimum controls the smallest amount of space you want between words. For instance, a value of 80% means that you are willing to allow the space to be 80% of the normal space.
• Desired controls the preferred amount of space between words. A value of 100% indicates that you want the same amount that the designer of the typeface created.
• Maximum controls the largest amount of space you want between words. A value of 120% means that you are willing to allow the space to be 120% of the normal space.
The Minimum, Desired, and Maximum settings apply only to text that is set to one of the Justified settings. Other alignments, such as left-aligned text, use only the Desired setting.
The space between letters is letter spacing, sometimes called character spacing. InDesign lets you change the letter spacing for text whether justified or not.
• Desired controls the preferred amount of space between letters. A value of 0% indicates that you do not want to add or subtract any space.
• Minimum controls the smallest amount of space between letters. A value of –5% allows the space to be reduced by 5% of the normal space.
• Maximum controls the largest amount of space between letters. A value of 5% allows the space to be increased by 5% of the normal space.
If a paragraph cannot be set according to the justification controls you choose, InDesign violates the settings by adding or subtracting spaces. Set the Composition preferences to have those violations highlighted.
Another way to control justification is to use glyph scaling. (Glyph is the proper term for all the letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and other parts of text.) Glyph scaling applies horizontal scaling to the letters themselves so that the text takes up more or less space within the line.
• Desired controls the preferred amount of scaling. A value of 100% indicates that you do not want to apply any scaling to the character shape.
• Minimum controls the smallest amount of scaling that you are willing to apply to the text. A value of 98% means that you are willing to allow the characters to be reduced by 2% of their normal width.
• Maximum controls the amount that you are willing to expand the space between words. A value of 105% means that you are willing to allow the characters to be increased by 5% of their normal width.
Glyph scaling distorts the shape of letters. Most people say you can’t see the slight distortion. However, typographic purists (such as this author) try to avoid distorting the letterforms whenever possible .
The Auto Leading field controls how much space is put between the lines whenever automatic leading is chosen.
To set the Auto Leading percentage:
The Auto Leading percentage is based on the point size of the text. So an Auto Leading of 120% applied to 12-point text creates a leading of 14.4 points (12 × 1.20 = 14.4).
Most professional designers use an absolute amount for leading by entering a specific number, rather than relying on the automatic leading.
Have you ever seen a paragraph of justified text where a single word stretched out along the entire line? InDesign lets you control what happens to a single word in a justified paragraph.
To set the single word justification:
InDesign lets you turn on hyphenation in the Paragraph panel. Once hyphenation is turned on, you can then control how the hyphenation is applied.
• Words with at Least controls the minimum number of letters a word must contain before it can be hyphenated.
• After First sets the minimum number of letters before the hyphen.
• Before Last sets the minimum number of letters after the hyphen.
• Hyphen Limit sets how many consecutive lines can end with hyphens.
• Hyphenation Zone controls the amount of whitespace at the end of a nonjustified line.
Sometimes you may want to prevent words or phrases from being hyphenated or breaking across lines. For instance, you might not want the words Mr. Cohen to be separated at the end of a line. You might not want a compound word such as self-effacing to be broken with another hyphen .
To apply the No Break command:
You can also control hyphenation by inserting a discretionary hyphen, which forces the word to hyphenate at that point if it breaks at the end of a line.
To use a discretionary hyphen:
or
Control-click (Mac) or Right-click (Win) and choose Insert Special Character > Hyphens and Dashes > Discretionary Hyphen from the contextual menu.
Insert a discretionary hyphen before a word to prevent that instance of the word from being hyphenated.
You can control where a word is hyphenated.
To edit the hyphenation in the dictionary:
• One tilde (~) indicates the best possible hyphenation position.
• Two tildes (~~) indicates the next best possible position.
• Three tildes (~~~) indicates the least acceptable position.
• A tilde before the word prevents the word from being hyphenated.
InDesign has an electronic grid that you can force text to align to. This ensures that text lines up correctly in two separate frames .
To align text to a baseline grid:
When you align to the baseline grid, the grid setting overrides the leading. Most designers set the baseline grid to the same amount as the leading for the text .
In addition to setting the baseline grid, you can choose to set just the first line of a paragraph to the baseline grid.
To align just the first line to the baseline grid:
or
Choose First Line Only from the Align to Grid menu in the Indents and Spacing area of the Paragraph Style Options dialog box.
This forces the first line of a paragraph to align to the grid but allows the other lines in the paragraph to be controlled by the leading .
You can also set a custom baseline grid for a text frame. This is especially helpful for formatting margin notes alongside text .
To create a custom grid for a text frame:
Another nuance for good typography is to make sure that there are no uneven line breaks, especially in headlines or centered type. InDesign’s Balance Ragged Lines command makes this easier .
To balance uneven line breaks:
or
Choose Balance Ragged Lines in the Indents and Spacing area of the Paragraph Style Options dialog box.
Instead of the paltry 256 glyphs (characters) in ordinary fonts, OpenType fonts can have thousands of glyphs. InDesign has special commands that help you get the most out of OpenType fonts. For instance, you can set the commands to automatically swap ordinary characters with special OpenType glyphs.
To set automatic OpenType alternate characters:
You can also manually choose alternate glyphs for each character in the font.
To choose the alternate glyphs:
You can also set the Glyphs panel to display just certain categories of glyphs.
To view certain categories in the Glyphs panel:
Not all OpenType fonts contain all the possible glyph features. So the Show list will display different categories depending on the OpenType font chosen.
3.144.93.141