Typesetting tricks archive
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- non
Give your best typsetting tricks (InDesign).
- Jimbo820
make sure you're on single line composer
- non0
Shift+cmd+page up (or page down) selects all the text before or after your cursor.
- non0
Here is a nice link
http://www.adobepress.com/articl…
- jysta0
setup a baseline grid based on leading of your body text.
- Seems like baseline grids always reduce flexibility. I might not be using them correctly.non
- reduce flexibility = increase legibilityjimzy
- reduce flexibility = increase baselineablilityjimzy
- = strategery!gramme
- Set it to half your leading: more flexibleDancer
- oww half, now ya talkin'!!! Best of both worlds.jysta
- monospaced0
Optical margin alignment in the Story panel.
I'm also a fan of having my headline type hang from its x Height. Text Frame Options > Baseline Options > First Baseline: x Height
Hyphenation:
Words with at least: 6 letters
After First: 3
Before Last: 3
Hyphen Limit: 2- never hypenateDancer
- hyphenate sometimes... but avoid at all costs.
ThisIsMe - whoever told you that is stupid. Hyphenation is normal, it promotes better rags, and there's no problem with itmonospaced
- H&J style sheets are a must on multi-page documents/templatesgoldieboy
- previous0
setup a baseline grid based on fractional leading of your body text.
for instance, 4 pt baseline grid for 12 pt leading
- gramme0
Nice idea about baseline grids, Rand.
I personally use baseline grids when setting fair amounts of text, particularly with multiple columns that benefit from everything being locked up and lined up.
I've recently started using negatively kerned blank space to optically align large headlines with smaller text, as well as aligning and mortising drop caps. This is an old but somewhat arcane trick that I picked up from Robert Bringhurst. When setting ragged headlines + text & ragged paragraphs with dropped caps, this is far more accurate than using the Story dialog (I really find Story to be helpful only when justifying blocks of text).
To optically align, set a thin or hair space before the first letter, and then negatively kern—you can go all the way to –1,000. To mortise drop caps (optically align text to the right side of a dropped cap), do the same thing. This creates lovely dropped caps without awkward chunks of white space. Particularly useful for letters like A, F, L, T, W, and Y.
- i relish the day i figured out that negative kerning trick.baseline_shift
- Yeah. Before, I was doing it the hard way, with separate text boxes.gramme
- You can also achieve balance and alignment with the Optical Margin Alignment set to the larger type's pt size.monospaced
- yeah been using that for ages too its a good unjimzy
- I was gonna say, I'm sure I read something about this recentlyrascuache
- gramme0
When setting bold copy in the flow of a lighter-weight body of text, I set the bold type about a half-point smaller for better optical balance. With headlines that contain lighter and bold weights, the disparity in size increases with larger and larger headlines. There's no real math to it, but for example I'll usually set bold text among lighter headlines at 3/4 to a full point smaller. Anything over 64 point gets an even bigger size difference.
- baseline_shift0
every time i get a .doc from a client and place it in indesign the first thing i do is open the find palate and replace all double spaces with single ones.
- LOL, me too. I also replace all the -- (double hyphens) to real em/en dashes, and I even remove the spaces at the end of paragraphs.monospaced
- paragraphs...which Word for some reason includes.monospaced
- yeah, i do that -- replacement as well. And i always rock the invisible characters. Never know what gems are hidden in therebaseline_shift
- werdmonospaced
- gramme0
This is a very particular and specific detail, but when I set all-caps type in Mercury, I set figures a quarter-point larger so they are actually lining height. H&FJ purposely drew their figures smaller in an effort to avoid true text figures. It's a feature of Mercury that's always bugged me, especially if you pair it with a sans that has text figures.
An extremely tedious work-around is to set figures amongst Mercury text in Farnham, since they are both basically contemporary versions of the Fleischman style. Farnham's x-height is taller, so you have to set the figures at a slightly smaller size.
- —but when done properly, it looks like someone actually added text figures to Mercury.gramme
- It's a nearly seamless fit.gramme
- Your type eliteness raises its ugly head. We're not worthy.monospaced
- hah, yeah wow. I thought i was a type nerd.baseline_shift
- Yes, I am a massive nerd. Or, a pompous cock as Greedo would say.gramme
- gramme1
I like to hang my punctuation in centered blocks of text. For example, if there's a comma or period at the end of a line, I'll set the same punctuating glyph at the *start* of the line, and make the starting glyph transparent. It kicks the punctuation over a hair and looks more balanced with the rest of the block.
- fancy... this kinda thing (even the negative kerning thing) makes me nervous when i go to print. Do you outline type before releasing files?baseline_shift
- ...outline type before releasing files?baseline_shift
- Outlined type, for some reason, outputs differently when printed. For instance, body copy feels heavy. I don't outline anything.monospaced
- outline type as a rule.monospaced
- I never do that. Someone once told me kerning tables are different from one computer to the next,gramme
- but I think they had their facts mixed up. Kerning tables reside in fonts, not in operation systems right?gramme
- I mean, since every font requires different kerning...gramme
- But yeah, at any rate I never outline type, besides logos or certain illustrations of course.gramme
- Outlining type only affects the onscreen appearance, since the type-hinting is now gone. Has no effect on print output, except on non-postscript printers.duckofrubber
- except on non-postscript printers.duckofrubber
- what the duck saidrkrd
- rascuache0
I just picked up this book, and though I haven't had the chance to read through it properly yet, every time I've looked something up it's been bang on.
- http://rs528.rapidsh…Paralell
- you got a password for that file paralell?baseline_shift
- no HAHAHAHAHParalell
- Knuckleberry0
For visually setting kerning:
Squint your eyes and look at the negative space.
- BaskerviIle0
^ for kerning turn the phrase upside down to look at the space subjectively.
Also, anyone know if there's any way of altering kerning tables in InDesign?
- Not built-in, but I hear there are plug-ins that you can use at your own risk.monospaced
- Thanks Baskerville, never tried it.Knuckleberry
- baseline_shift0
i use 1 dagger now (†) (command + forwardslash) instead of tons of tabs to organize the indentation of bulleted points.
- eh?monospaced
- It amazes me how many people don't know this by now.Gucci
- This automates indents? Or do you place an invisible dagger at the start of each line?gramme
- start of each bulleted paragraph. All lines will align at the dagger until you use a hard return.baseline_shift
- OOOOOO, nice tip!gramme
- nice oneESKEMA
- was constantly using indent + negative first line indent, but this is much nicer.ESKEMA
- Not sure I understand this. French terms are diffrent, but I'm trying to make sense of itnon
- Can anyone explain further?non
- Nevermind, got the link under.non
- Gucci0
I use GREP expressions to replace fractions with expert typeface fonts. Works a treat with "the sans" and other fonts like it.
- baseline_shift0
dagger indentation explanation:
http://books.google.com/books?id…- also called "indent to here"johndiggity
- Intriguing.duckofrubber
- This is the best thing since bacon.
WOW!non
- gramme0
If margins are wide enough, I like to outdent bullets and superscripts. I find a distance of 1/2 lead looks about right.
- how do you outdent the bullets?baseline_shift
- really baseline?monospaced
- really. Something obvious? Never tried.baseline_shift
- One of two ways, far as I know: create separate text boxes for outdented matter;gramme
- Or, you can indent the entire block, set it a half-lead outside of the desired position, and just don't indent bullets / supers.gramme
- oh, ok. So its work arounds. Ive never been able to properly 'outdent' out of the text box's constraints.baseline_shift
- thnx gramme.baseline_shift
- Glad to help. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to return to being a pompous cock.gramme
- gramme0
This isn't really a secret, but if a font family has a broad range of well-paced weight increments (thin, light, book, regular, medium, semibold, etc.), then I like to set reversed-out text one weight heavier than I would if the text was not reversed.
For example, my current favorite sans face is National. I like to set paragraphs in the Book weight, and go up to Regular for knockouts. This makes the weight appear optically consistent, as heavy coverage will encroach on the edges of type (even with great trapping and registration).