Fine-Tuning Paragraph Details
In This Chapter
ᮣ Understanding paragraph fundamentals
ᮣ Changing basic and advanced paragraph formats
ᮣ Applying bullets and numbering
ᮣ Working with hyphenation and justification
ᮣ Adding ruling lines to paragraphs
Paragraphs are more than lines of text; they’re chunks of information that themselves help convey meaning by organizing that information into related bits. Various types of paragraph formatting let you both make those chunks clearly distinguishable from each other and highlight certain chunks, such as lists or long quotes, from others.
This chapter explains what you need to know about formatting paragraphs, from setting indents and alignment — the two most commonly used paragraph attributes — to more sophisticated tasks like adding bullets and ruling lines.
Applying Paragraph Formats
InDesign provides three ways to apply paragraph formats:
ߜ
Use the controls in the Paragraph panel, shown in Figure 14-1, or their keyboard shortcuts. This method is great for working on individual paragraphs, although it’s not the best method when working with lots of paragraphs you want to have the same formatting. You can open the Paragraph panel in three ways: Choose Type➪Paragraph, choose Window➪Type & Tables➪Paragraph, or press Option+Ô+T or
Ctrl+Alt+T.
238 Part IV: Text Essentials
ߜ
Use the controls in the Control panel. (Be sure that the Type tool is active and that the ¶ iconic button is selected in the panel to display paragraph-oriented functions.) These controls mirror those in the Paragraph panel, and using them instead of the Paragraph panel can reduce screen clutter. If the Control panel isn’t visible (it almost always is), display it by choosing Window➪Control (Option+Ô+6 or Ctrl+Alt+6). ߜ
Create and apply paragraph styles, as covered in Chapter 13. Paragraph styles let you apply consistent formatting — and easily change it to all affected paragraphs — throughout your document.
Whichever method you use — and you’ll use them all — the types of formatting available to you are the same.
The Paragraph panel and Control panel provide access to most of InDesign’s paragraph-formatting options. Also, several of the options have keyboard shortcuts, as shown in the menus. But to set tabs, you must open the Tabs panel, as Chapter 19 covers.
Figure 14-1 shows the Paragraph panel. If you choose Hide Options from the flyout menu, the Space Before, Space After, Drop Cap Number of Lines, Drop Cap Number of Characters, Hyphenate, and Align/Do Not Align to Baseline Grid controls aren’t displayed. You can use the double-arrow iconic button to the left of the panel name to toggle among showing the panel title, the basic options, and all options.
Figure 14-1:
The full
Paragraph
panel.
Chapter 14: Fine-Tuning Paragraph Details
239
Specifying Alignment and Indents
Alignment and indents give paragraphs their fundamental appearance. Indentation helps readers visually separate paragraphs — the indent acts as the separator, like the blank lines used to separate paragraphs in typewritten documents — while alignment provides visual texture.
The alignment buttons at the top of the Paragraph panel control how a selected paragraph begins and ends relative to the left and right margins. To apply a paragraph alignment to selected paragraphs, click one of the buttons. You can also use the keyboard shortcuts described in the following list. Here’s a description of each alignment option (the icons themselves illustrate what they do):
ߜ
Align Left (Shift+Ô+L or Ctrl+Shift+L): This alignment places the left edge of every line at the left margin (the margin can be the frame edge, frame inset, left indent, or column edge) and fits as many words (or syllables, if the hyphenation is turned on) on the line as possible. In left-aligned paragraphs, the right margin is said to be ragged because the leftover space at the right end of each line differs from line to line and produces a ragged edge.
ߜ
Align Center (Shift+Ô+C or Ctrl+Shift+C): This alignment makes both the left and right edges of the paragraphs equally ragged.
ߜ
Align Right (Shift+Ô+R or Ctrl+Shift+R): This alignment is a mirror opposite of Align Left. The right edge is straight; the left edge is ragged. ߜ
Justify, Last Line Aligned Left (Shift+Ô+J or Ctrl+Shift+J): In justified text, the left and right ends of each line are flush with the margins. (You can find out more about justification in the section “Controlling Hyphenation and Justification,” later in this chapter.) Justified text is nearly always hyphenated — if you don’t hyphenate justified text, spacing between letters and words is very inconsistent. Aligning the last line flush left is the traditional way of ending a paragraph. ߜ
Justify, Last Line Aligned Center: This alignment produces justified text with the last line centered.
ߜ
Justify, Last Line Aligned Right: This alignment produces justified text with the last line aligned to the right.
ߜ
Justify All Lines (Shift+Ô+F or Ctrl+Shift+F): This alignment produces justified text with the last line forcibly justified. This option can produce last lines that are very widely spaced. The fewer the number of characters on the last line, the greater the spacing.
The previous three alignment options are rarely used, and for good reason. People expect justified text to have the last line aligned left; the space at the end of the line marks the end of the paragraph. By changing the position of that last line, you can confuse your reader.
240 Part IV: Text Essentials
ߜ
Align Toward Spine: Essentially, this option automatically creates rightaligned text on left-hand pages and left-aligned text on right-hand pages. InDesign chooses a left or right alignment based on the location of the spine in a facing-pages document.
ߜ
Align Away from Spine: This option is the same as Align Toward Spine except that the alignment is reversed: Text aligns to the left on left-hand pages and to the right on right-hand pages.
When creating paragraph styles, all the preceding controls are available in the Indents and Spacing pane of the New Paragraph Styles dialog box. Adjusting indent controls
The indent controls in the Paragraph panel let you both move the edges of paragraphs away from the left and/or right margins and indent the first line. Your options are as follows:
ߜ
Left Indent: Moves the left edge of selected paragraphs away from the left margin by the amount you specify in the field. You can also click the up and down arrows. Each click increases the value by 1 point; holding down the Shift key while clicking increases the increment to 1 pica. ߜ
Right Indent: Moves the right edge of selected paragraphs away from the right margin by the amount you specify in the field. You can also use the up and down arrows.
ߜ
First-Line Left Indent: Moves the left edge of the first line of selected paragraphs away from the left margin by the amount you specify in the field. You can also click the up and down arrows to adjust the indentation. The value in the First-Line Left Indent field is added to any Left Indent value. Using a tab or spaces to indent the first line of a paragraph, which is what was done in the age of typewriters, is usually not a good idea. You’re better off specifying a First-Line Left Indent.
ߜ
Last-Line Right Indent: Moves the right edge of the last line of selected paragraphs away from the right margin by the amount you specify in the field. You can also click the up and down arrows.
When creating paragraph styles, all the preceding controls are available in the Indents and Spacing pane of the New Paragraph Styles dialog box. Chapter 14: Fine-Tuning Paragraph Details
241
Inserting space between paragraphs
To format a lengthy chunk of text with multiple paragraphs, you can indicate a new paragraph by indenting the paragraph’s first line (by specifying a FirstLine Left Indent value, as covered in the previous section, “Adjusting indent controls”). Or you can insert some extra space between the new paragraph and the preceding one. Although no rule states that you can’t use both of these spacing methods, it’s a good idea to use one or the other — not both: ߜ
To insert space before selected paragraphs, enter a value in the Space Before field in the Paragraph panel or Control panel. You can also use the up and down arrow buttons; each click increases the value by 1
point and holding down Shift key increases the increment to 1 pica. ߜ
The Space After field works the same as the Space Before field but inserts space below selected paragraphs. If you use Space Before to space paragraphs, you won’t need to use Space After, and vice versa; combining both can be confusing.
What you don’t want to do is insert extra paragraph returns between paragraphs. Doing so makes it harder to ensure that columns begin with text (as opposed to blank lines).
Controlling space between lines
Leading (pronounced “ledding”) is the space between lines of text within a paragraph. Even though leading is traditionally an attribute of the paragraph, InDesign treats it as a character format, which you specify by using the Leading control in the Character panel or Control panel.
To change this character-oriented approach to affect entire paragraphs, select the Apply Leading to Entire Paragraphs option in the Type pane of the Preferences dialog box. (Choose InDesign➪Preferences➪Type [Ô+K] on the Mac or Edit➪Preferences➪Type [Ctrl+K] in Windows.)
Another way to control space between lines of text is to use baseline grids, as described in Chapter 10. Essentially, a baseline grid overrides the leading specified for paragraphs — you choose whether it overrides the spacing of every line in the paragraph or just the first line. To align to baseline grids, you must click the Align to Baseline iconic button in the Paragraph panel (the rightmost iconic button on the bottom of the panel) for the selected paragraphs. To prevent such locking to the baseline, click the Do Not Align to Baseline iconic button to its immediate left. These same buttons also exist on the right side of the Control panel.
242 Part IV: Text Essentials
Controlling where paragraphs break
InDesign’s Keep Options feature lets you prevent widows and orphans; it also lets you keep paragraphs together when they would otherwise be broken at the bottom of a column. A widow is the last line of a paragraph that falls at the top of a column. (The poor thing has been cut off from the rest of the family, the last survivor.) An orphan is the first line of a paragraph that falls at the bottom of a column. (It, too, has become separated from its family, the only survivor.)
When you choose Keep Options from the Paragraph panel’s flyout menu, the Keep Options dialog box, shown in Figure 14-2, appears.
Figure 14-2:
The Keep
Options
dialog box.
The Keep Options dialog box holds several options for how paragraphs are managed as text breaks across columns and pages:
ߜ
Keep with Next Lines: This option applies to two consecutive paragraphs and controls the number of lines of the second paragraph that must stay with the first paragraph if a column or page break occurs within the second paragraph.
ߜ
Keep Lines Together: If you click this check box, it prevents paragraphs from breaking. When this box is checked, the two radio buttons below it become available. The radio buttons present an either/or choice. One must be selected; At Start/End of Paragraph is selected by default. ߜ
All Lines in Paragraph: This option prevents a paragraph from being broken at the end of a column or page. When a column or page break occurs within a paragraph to which this setting has been applied, the entire paragraph moves to the next column or page.
ߜ
At Start/End of Paragraph: Select this check box to control widows and orphans. When this button is selected, the two fields below it become available:
Chapter 14: Fine-Tuning Paragraph Details
243
•
Start x Lines: This field controls orphans. The value you enter is the minimum number of lines at the beginning of a paragraph that must be placed at the bottom of a column when a paragraph is
split by a column ending.
•
End x Lines: This field controls widows. The value you enter is the minimum number of lines at the end of a paragraph that must be placed at the top of a column when a paragraph is split by a
column ending.
ߜ
Start Paragraph: From this pop-up menu, choose Anywhere to let the paragraph begin where it would fall naturally in the sequence of text (no forced break). Choose In Next Column to force a paragraph to begin in the next column; choose In Next Frame to make it begin in the next frame in the story chain; choose On Next Page to force a paragraph to begin on the next page (such as for chapter headings). Your other choices are similar: On Next Odd Page and On Next Even Page.
When creating paragraph styles, all the preceding controls are available in the Keep Options pane of the New Paragraph Styles dialog box.
Adding Drop Caps
Drop caps are enlarged capital letters that are often used to embellish paragraphs (usually the first paragraph of a chapter or story) and draw attention to paragraphs. In the Paragraph panel or Control panel, InDesign lets you specify the number of letters you want to include in a drop cap and the number of lines you want to drop them down into.
To add one or more drop caps to selected paragraphs, enter a number in the Drop Cap Number of Characters field in the Paragraph panel or Control panel. The number you enter determines how many characters in a selected paragraph will be made into drop caps. To specify the number of lines a drop cap will extend into a paragraph (and therefore the height of the drop cap), enter a number in the Drop Cap Number of Lines field.
After you create a drop cap, you can modify it by highlighting it and changing any of its character formats — font, size, color, and so on — by using the Character panel or Control panel, as well as other panes such as Stroke and Swatches. Even better: Apply a character style to it that has all the desired attributes stored in one place. Figure 14-3 shows two examples of drop caps.
When creating paragraph styles, the preceding controls are available in the Drop Caps and Nested Styles pane of the New Paragraph Styles dialog box. (See Chapter 13 for details on nested styles.)
244 Part IV: Text Essentials
Figure 14-3:
A onecharacter
drop cap
three lines
deep (top),
and a twoline, fourcharacter
drop cap
with the first
word set in
small caps
(bottom).
Controlling Hyphenation
and Justification
Hyphenation is the placement of hyphens between syllables in words that won’t fit at the end of a line of text. A hyphen is a signal to the reader that the word continues on the next line. InDesign gives you the option to turn paragraph hyphenation on or off. If you choose to hyphenate, you can customize the settings that determine when and where hyphens are inserted. Justification is the addition or removal of space between words and/or letters that produces the flush-left/flush-right appearance of justified paragraphs. InDesign’s justification controls let you specify how space is added or removed when paragraphs are justified. If you justify paragraphs, you almost certainly want to hyphenate them, too. If you opt for left-aligned paragraphs, whether to hyphenate is a personal choice.
InDesign offers both manual and automatic hyphenation.
Manual hyphenation
To break a particular word in a specific place, you can place a discretionary hyphen in the word. If the word doesn’t entirely fit at the end of a line in a hyphenated paragraph, InDesign uses the discretionary hyphen to split the
Chapter 14: Fine-Tuning Paragraph Details
245
word if the part of the word before the hyphen fits on the line. To insert a discretionary hyphen, use the shortcut Shift+Ô+–or Ctrl+Shift+–(note the hyphen in the shortcuts) in the text where you want the hyphen to appear. If a word has a discretionary hyphen, and hyphenation is necessary, InDesign breaks the word only at that point. But you can place multiple discretionary hyphens within a single word. If a word needs to be hyphenated, InDesign uses the hyphenation point that produces the best results.
You can prevent a particular word from being hyphenated either by placing a discretionary hyphen in front of the first letter or by highlighting the word and choosing No Break from the flyout menu of the Control panel or Character panel. (You need to select the A iconic button in the Control panel to get this option in its flyout menu.) But be careful: If you select more than a line’s width of text and apply No Break, InDesign doesn’t know what to do, and so it doesn’t display the rest of the story.
To prevent hyphenation for an entire paragraph, click anywhere inside of it and uncheck Hyphenate from the Paragraph panel or Control panel. (Be sure the ¶ button is selected in the Control panel.)
Automatic hyphenation
To have InDesign automatically hyphenate selected paragraphs, all you have to do is check the Hyphenate check box in the Paragraph panel or Control panel. (Remember that in the Paragraph panel, the Hyphenate check box appears only if you choose Show Options from the flyout menu.) You can control how InDesign actually performs the hyphenation via the Hyphenation option in the flyout menu. When you choose Hyphenation, the Hyphenation Settings dialog box, shown in Figure 14-4, appears. Figure 14-4:
The
Hyphenation
Settings
dialog box.
246 Part IV: Text Essentials
The options in the Hyphenation Settings dialog box include
ߜ
Hyphenate: This option is a duplicate of the Hyphenate check box in the Paragraph panel and Control panel. If you didn’t check it before opening the Hyphenation Settings dialog box, you can check it here. ߜ
Words with at Least x Letters: This spot is where you specify the number of letters in the shortest word you want to hyphenate.
ߜ
After First x Letters: In this field, enter the minimum number of characters that can precede a hyphen.
ߜ
Before Last x Letters: The number entered in this field determines the minimum number of characters that can follow a hyphen.
ߜ
Hyphen Limit: x Hyphens: In this field, you specify the number of consecutive lines that can be hyphenated. Several consecutive hyphens produce an awkward, ladder-like look, so consider entering a small number, such as 2 or 3, in this field.
ߜ
Hyphenation Zone: The entry in this field applies only to nonjustified text and only when the Adobe Single-Line Composer option is selected (in the Paragraph panel’s flyout menu). A hyphenation point must fall within the distance specified in this field in relation to the right margin in order to be used. Acceptable hyphenation points that don’t fall within the specified hyphenation zone are ignored. You can also use the Better Spacing/Fewer Hyphens slider below the field to pick a value rather than entering a value in the Hyphenation Zone field.
ߜ
Hyphenate Capitalized Words: If you check this box, InDesign hyphenates, when necessary, capitalized words. If you don’t check this box, a capitalized word that would otherwise be hyphenated gets bumped to the next line, which may cause excessive spacing in the previous line. ߜ
Hyphenate Last Word: Check this box to allow InDesign to break the last word in a paragraph. Otherwise, InDesign moves the entire word to the last line and spaces the preceding text as necessary. Many typographers believe hyphenating the last word in a paragraph looks bad, so it’s rare to enable this option.
ߜ
Hyphenate Across Column: Check this box to let text hyphenate at the end of a column. Many typographers believe hyphenating the word at the end of a column looks bad, so it’s also rare to enable this option.
When creating paragraph styles, all the preceding controls are available in the Hyphenation pane of the New Paragraph Styles dialog box — except for the composer setting, covered in the next sections.
Chapter 14: Fine-Tuning Paragraph Details
247
Controlling justification
To control how justification is achieved, you can
ߜ
Condense or expand the width of spaces between words.
ߜ
Add or remove space between letters.
ߜ
Condense or expand the width of characters.
The options in the Justification dialog box, shown in Figure 14-5, let you specify the degree to which InDesign adjusts normal word spaces, character spacing, and character width to achieve justification. Access this dialog box by choosing Justification in the flyout menu in the Control panel or in the Paragraph panel, or by pressing Option+Shift+Ô+J or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+J. When specifying values in the Justification dialog box, Minimum values must be smaller than Desired values, which in turn must be smaller than Maximum values.
Figure 14-5:
The
Justification
dialog box.
The Justification dialog box lets you specify the following options: ߜ
Word Spacing: Enter the percentage of a character that you want to use whenever possible in the Desired field. (The default value is 100%, which uses a font’s built-in width.) Enter the minimum acceptable percentage in the Minimum field; enter the maximum acceptable percentage in the Maximum field. The smallest value you can enter is 0%; the largest is 1000%.
ߜ
Letter Spacing: The default value of 0% in this field uses a font’s built-in letter spacing. In the Desired field, enter a positive value to add space (in increments of 1% of an en space) between all letter pairs; enter a negative value to remove space. Enter the minimum acceptable percentage in the Minimum field; enter the maximum acceptable
percentage in the Maximum field.
248 Part IV: Text Essentials
ߜ
Glyph Scaling: The default value of 100% uses a character’s normal width. In the Desired field, enter a positive value to expand all character widths; enter a negative value to condense character widths. Enter the minimum acceptable percentage in the Minimum field and the maximum acceptable percentage in the Maximum field. If you do apply glyph scaling, keep it to a range of 97 to 103 percent at most.
If you use the Adobe Paragraph Composer option (see the following section) for justified paragraphs, specifying a narrow range between minimum and maximum Word Spacing, Letter Spacing, and Glyph Scaling generally produces good-looking results. However, if you choose the Adobe Single-Line Composer option, a broader range between Minimum and Maximum gives the composer more leeway in spacing words and letters and hyphenating words and can produce better-looking results. The best way to find out what values work best is to experiment with several settings. Print hard copies and let your eyes decide which values produce the best results.
When creating paragraph styles, all the preceding controls are available in the Justification pane of the New Paragraph Styles dialog box.
Composing text
The Paragraph panel’s flyout menu offers two options for implementing the hyphenation and justification settings you establish:
ߜ
Adobe Single-Line Composer: In single-line composition, hyphenation and justification settings are applied to each line in a paragraph, one line at a time. The effect of modifying the spacing of one line on the lines above and below it isn’t considered in single-line composition, so it can cause poor spacing.
ߜ
Adobe Paragraph Composer: InDesign’s Adobe Paragraph Composer is selected by default. It takes a broader approach to composition than the Adobe Single-Line Composer by looking at the entire paragraph at once. If a poorly spaced line can be fixed by adjusting the spacing of a previous line, the Adobe Paragraph Composer reflows the previous line.
The Adobe Paragraph Composer is more sophisticated than the SingleLine Composer, offering better overall spacing because it sacrifices optimal spacing a bit on one line to prevent really bad spacing on another, something the single-line method doesn’t do.
These options are also available in the Justification dialog box, covered in the previous section.
Chapter 14: Fine-Tuning Paragraph Details
249
Ruling Your Paragraphs
If you want to place a horizontal line within text so that the line moves with the text when editing causes the text to reflow — an often effective highlighting device — you need to create a paragraph rule. A paragraph rule looks much like a line created with the line tool but behaves like a text character. Here’s how to create paragraph rules:
1. Select the paragraphs to which you want to apply a rule above and/or a rule below and then choose Paragraph Rules from the Paragraph panel’s or Control panel’s flyout menu.
Alternatively, you can use the shortcut Option+Ô+J or Ctrl+Alt+J.
You can also specify rules as part of a paragraph style. The Paragraph Rules dialog box, shown in Figure 14-6, is displayed.
Figure 14-6:
The Paragraph Rules
dialog box.
2. Choose Rule Above or Rule Below and then click Rule On.
To add rules both above and below, click Rule On for both options and specify their settings separately. To see the rule while you create it, select the Preview option.
3. Choose a predefined thickness from the Weight pop-up menu or enter a value in the Weight field.
4. Choose a rule type from the Type pop-up menu.
You can choose from 17 types, including dashed, striped, dotted, and wavy lines.
5. Choose a color for the rule from the Color pop-up menu.
This menu lists the colors displayed in the Swatches panel
(Window➪Swatches [F5]).
250 Part IV: Text Essentials
6. From the Width pop-up menu, choose Column to have the rule extend from the left edge of the column to the right edge of the column; choose Text to have the rule extend from the left edge of the frame or column to the right.
7. To indent the rule from the left and/or right edges, enter values in the Left Indent and/or Right Indent fields.
8. Control the vertical position of the rule by entering a value in the Offset field.
For a rule above, the offset value is measured upward from the baseline of the first line in a paragraph to the bottom of the rule; for a rule below, the offset is measured downward from the baseline of the last line in a paragraph to the top of the rule.
9. Check the Overprint Stroke box if you want to print a rule on top of any underlying colors.
This option ensures that any misregistration during printing won’t result in white areas around the rule where the paper shows through. A similar Overprint Gap check box is available for lines that have a Gap Color.
10. To ensure that a rule over a paragraph at the top of a frame displays within the frame, check the Keep in Frame option.
11. Click OK to close the dialog box, implement your changes, and return to the document.
To remove a paragraph rule, click in the paragraph to which the rule is applied, choose Paragraph Rules from the Paragraph panel’s flyout menu, uncheck the Rule On box, and then click OK.
When creating paragraph styles, all the preceding controls are available in the Paragraph Rules pane of the New Paragraph Styles dialog box.