Lesson B: Typography Essentials

• To get started, open the downloaded document called 3 Text Styles.indd. To manage any missing fonts messages, follow the instructions in “Procure a Few Fonts” (page 19). Then go to page 2 of the document. Fit the whole spread in the window to see page 3 as well (⌘-option-0/Ctrl-Alt-0).

  Much more on this chapter’s topics can be found in chapter 3 of the Compendium, “Styles, Type & Fonts.”

Formatting Text

• With the Type tool, click in the text frame that contains “Pretty Bark” on page 3. Look at the Control panel or the Properties panel for some key formatting options: Font Family, Style, Font Size, Leading, Kerning, Tracking. Also find the Alignment options and the various indents. Hover your cursor over the more cryptic icons to determine which option is which.

Some of these options will affect the entire paragraph in which your cursor is located, even if no text is highlighted. We call these paragraph-level attributes. Others often require text to be highlighted to specify what should be affected—these are character-level attributes.

Alignment

• Insert your cursor in the paragraph that begins “Arbutus menziesii is an evergreen tree…”. Try the different alignment options. Notice that the entire paragraph shifts.

The Properties panel offers one more option than the Control panel does, but it’s not likely you’ll use it (Justify with last line aligned right). You’ll notice those that justify text (so it runs from one edge of the frame to the other) affect the spacing between words in ways that aren’t always welcome. The Align towards spine and Align away from spine options appear to be like Align left and Align right, respectively. That’s because the spine between the two pages of the spread is to the left of the frame we’re working with (page 3). Had we been working on page 2, each of those alignment options would do the opposite.

Indents & Spacing

When we need space around a paragraph, we use indents (for the left and right sides) and Space Before and Space After for vertical breathing room.

• With your text cursor still blinking in a paragraph, increase and decrease Left Indent and Right Indent. Locate and adjust the First Line Left Indent as well. A fun thing to try: increase the Left Indent a bit, then decrease the First Line Left Indent until it goes negative. You can lower it until it’s as negative as the Left Indent is positive. We call this a hanging indent. It’s tricky to go back to no indent: you must first set the First Line Left Indent to 0, then you can set the Left Indent to 0.
• With the cursor in the line that reads “Pretty Bark,” adjust the Space After. Do the same with the next line (which is also a paragraph). Doing so with the last paragraph won’t reveal anything until another paragraph is added below it. However, you can adjust its Space Before.

Leading

• Check that your Type Preferences are set to Apply Leading to Entire Paragraphs—see “Type” (page 6). This makes leading a paragraph-level option.
• With your cursor in the paragraph that begins “Arbutus menziesii is an evergreen tree…,” locate and adjust the Leading in the Control panel or the Properties panel. The name “leading” is derived from the days when lead shims were used to add space between lines of type. Now, it’s defined as the distance between one baseline to the one above it. To familiarize yourself with that term and others, this might be a good time to look over the first few pages of the “Styles, Type & Fonts” chapter of this book’s Compendium.

From the keyboard, you can adjust a paragraph’s leading by holding down the option/Alt key and tapping the up arrow or down arrow key.

Kerning

Kerning is the spacing between two characters. As a character level option, its value applies only to the text at your cursor’s location. The only downside to developing an eye for kerning is how critically you’ll look at other people’s kerning. Be kind.

• On page 2, insert your text cursor between the “T” and the “y” in the word “Type.” Notice that a capital T has space near its stem that a lowercase letter can partially occupy. Holding down the option/Alt key, tap the left arrow key to decrease the space between those two letters. Use arrow keys alone to move the cursor. Increase the space between the “y” and “p” a little bit by holding down the option/Alt key and tapping the right arrow key.

You can monitor how much you’ve kerned your text in either the Control panel or the Properties panel. It is measured as a proportion of the font size in thousandths of an em.

• Hone your kerning skills by playing the Kerning Game: https://type.method.ac.

Tracking

Tracking is often confused with kerning because it also concerns the spacing between letters. However, tracking is applied to a range of selected text to either squeeze it or expand it.

• With the Selection tool, select the frame filled with placeholder text near the spine on page 2. Adjust its width so that it fits within the margins. The text becomes overset (see the little red plus sign?).
• Double-click within the text to quickly switch to the Type tool. Then quintuple-click (yes, that’s five clicks!) to highlight all of the text (including what’s overset).
• Holding down the option/Alt key, tap the left arrow key to decrease the tracking. You can note how much you’ve adjusted the tracking in either the Control panel or the Properties panel. Like kerning, it is measured as a proportion of the font size in thousandths of an em. You shouldn’t have to change the tracking by much to fit all the text in the frame.