Justification and Hyphenation settings in InDesign
Hello,
I'm working on a book project, and am using InDesign CS for the first time. I love the way the type looks compared with quark, but there are so many options under paragraph settings (and elsewhere). I'm wondering if anyone has any guidelines they use, particulary concerning min/max wordspace, min/max letterspace, and the glyph scaling option.
This is a photography book that will have a total of four pages of text, so I can spend all the time in the world tweaking, if need be. The type will be Storm Andulka, 10/15 with 110mm column width.
Thanks for any advice,
Paul
8.Nov.2004 5.26pm
Hi Paul,
I've used Indy for a while, and I'm still learning about typography proper (I don't think you ever stop), but these are the settings I'm currently using:
(Using justified body text as an example)
1. In InDesign>Preferences>Composition: Turn on "Show H&J Violations" (this will highlight tight or loose lines for you)
2. In the Paragraph Palette, check if you want hyphenation or not, then in the pull-down menu turn on the Paragraph Composer. (There's also a "Balance Ragged lines" option here that I haven't explored yet. That doesn't apply here anyway.)
In the Justification... section:
Wordspacing: 80%, 100%, 133% (The wordspacing only works when your text is justified. Set "Desired" to less than 100% to tighten wordspacing IF it needs it. Storm fonts seem to set pretty tight to me at these settings.)
Letterspacing: 0, 0, 0 ( I still have things to learn so I stay the hell away from letterspacing anything but SCaps!)
Glyph Scaling: 98, 100,102% (or don't use at all - check if it helps or not)
Then when you see a highlighted line showing a H&J violation, select the line and you can kern the Wordspacing only (not the letterspacing!) by Option-Command-Delete to remove word space, or Option-command-Backslash to add wordspace.
If you're hypenating text, set the hyphenation slider to 2 or 3 notches to the left of center.
Needless to say, if anyone here knows InDesign and typography and can see from my settings that I'm wrong or could improve it, PLEASE let me know!!
8.Nov.2004 5.39pm
One correction: The "Desired" field in Word Spacing *does* affect non-justified text. The "Minimum" and "Maximum" values come into play when text is justified.
8.Nov.2004 5.54pm
Aha! Thanks Marc!
9.Nov.2004 4.53am
Don't use "Balance Ragged Lines" its too sever, your better off balancing the type yourself. Some industries don't allow hypenation like the banking industry.
9.Nov.2004 8.00am
Thanks for all the advice.
Does anyone know if the glyph scaling option scales the stroke widths, or just the counters?
9.Nov.2004 10.35am
It scales the entire glyph, affecting stroke widths as well as counters. Therefore, if one does it at all, it's best to keep it to just a couple of %.
T