How-To
Typography
(pt. 2)

How-To

Typography and Issues with Type
(Part Two)

Kerning and Tracking

Here’s an explanation of kerning and tracking:

  Kerning is an adjustment of the space between two letters. The purpose of kerning is to make the space between letters visually even. Although all characters in a font have their own space band, when certain letters appear next to each other, the space may seem to be too large (generally) or occasionally too tight. For example, TH might look fine, but Te might look as if the “e” is too far from the “T”. There are many such combinations: Ve, Vo, We, AV, To, and many more. Good-quality, well-made fonts include a kerning table that makes adjustments for each combination and directs the output devices to make these adjustments. Many fonts will have 400 or 800 or more kerning pairs. You should nearly always turn on Kerning in WSWin paragraph styles for both text and headlines (provided the font has kerning pairs built in) and you should start at 8 points, or even 6, not the 12 point default. The one time you must NOT have kerning turned on is when the style applies to a merge-print variable. WSWin cannot merge print a line with a variable if kerning is turned on. You can also do manual kerning in WSWin. Sometimes even good fonts may have some combinations that aren’t well done, and you may adjust them manually to look better. Manual kerning is most often used on headlines and large type, where even-looking spacing is especially critical.

  Tracking is a global adjustment of spacing between letters and words. (Technically, that should be modified, but that is what tracking means in WSWin.) For example, if you use a tracking of 98%, the space between letters and words will be adjusted to 98% of normal; a tracking of 110% would increase the word- and letterspace to 110% of normal. This can be useful when you want a line to have large spaces between letters. You might want a 97% track if you’re using a font that seems to have too much space between letters and words. Be careful, though – a good font is designed to have a certain “closeness” or “airiness.” But not all fonts are well designed. So tracking does have its uses – especially true tracking, which is not what WSWin offers. (True tracking adjusts space depending upon the size at which the font is used.)

One of the weaknesses of WSWin is that you can use either kerning or tracking as part of a paragraph style, but not both. (Remember, kerning here refers to the kerning table built into the font, not to manual kerning the user applies.) Say you have a font with too-generous spacing, so you’d like to track it at 98%. Fine -except that now the carefully designed kerning adjustments don’t work, so your Ve and Wo and other combinations are ugly again. This illustrates what I said before – WSWin is not a professional tool. PageMaker, in contrast, allows true tracking that varies with the size of the type and will use kerning no matter what tracking setting you are using.

Rather than books on desktop publishing, I suggest you read books on page design and typography. Good design and typography are what make a professional-looking publication, not a computer program. (It goes without saying that the *content* of your publication is of surpassing importance. Here I’m talking about the setting you give that excellent content.)

A good book to get you started is The Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams. *She* is not the actor, by the way, but a designer and design teacher. Robin has subtitled her book Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice. She explains four basic design principles of Proximity, Alignment, Repetition, and Contrast and gives lots of comparative examples – all in 144 non-boring pages. Another necessity for a new publisher is also by Robin Williams, The PC is not a typewriter (or The Mac is not a typewriter, her earlier book that covers the same material). This books explains the difference between typewriting and typesetting. Please, please don’t start setting type until you learn these rock–bottom basics.

For a quick explanation of typesetting fundamentals, see “Getting Great Type with WordStar for Windows” beginning here.

If you want to learn the lingo of desktop publishing, graphic arts, prepress, and printing, you can read Graphically Speaking by Mark Beach. Very useful.

What “Kerning Above” Does

All fonts include a certain amount of space after a character so that one character doesn’t crash right into the next character. Unfortunately, one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to setting type. For certain combinations of characters, the built-in amount of space after a character will be all wrong and will not please the eye. For example, if you type the combination Vi it will probably look okay, but if you type Ve it will look as if there is an unsightly gap between the V and the e. If you typed the capital combination VM it will look okay, but if you type VA it will look like they are much too far apart. In all these cases the space after the V is exactly the same, but in combination with different letters the space can look like too much. For other letter combinations, the space may have to be increased in order to maintain the appearance of regularity.

In order to improve the appearance of letter fitting in a font, the type designer will add KERNING PAIRS that will adjust the space between different combinations of characters. These kerning pairs are built into the metrics of the font and will be available for any Windows programs that are capable of using them. WSWin can use the built-in kerning pairs in any font. However, no Windows program must use kerning pairs. The user can decide whether the kerning pairs will be used or not. Typographically competent programs also allow the user to designate at what point size the kerning pairs will “kick in.” The spacing differences are not so obvious at very small sizes. Thus, you probably need not bother with kerning pairs for 4-point type. But at text sizes (8 pt. and above), visually uneven spaces between letters will be noticeable. If you care about the way your type looks, you’ll have Kerning Above turned on, and you’ll have a point size of about 6 selected. This means that WSWin will use the font’s built-in kerning pairs for all type larger than 6 point.

ALAS!!! Not all Windows fonts have kerning pairs built in; some have too few kerning pairs; some have badly designed kerning pairs; some have no kerning pairs at all. A font manager (indispensable!) like FontMinder will tell you how many kerning pairs are included with any font on your system. A program like FontMonger will also tell this. A program like FontFiddler lets you adjust the kerning pairs in the font itself. Thus, if you have a font whose kerning pairs leave something to be desired, you can change the amount of space that is kerned and save your changes as part of the font’s metrics. Windows Arial roman (“plain,” to WSWin) comes with 105 kerning pairs; Windows Times New Roman roman also comes with 105. Courier is a monospaced font and so does not use kerning pairs. Adobe Garamond, an outstanding font, comes with 602 kerning pairs in the roman font. Many of the early TrueType font collections came with NO kerning pairs. The fonts on the Bitstream 500-font CD-ROM (probably the best low-cost collection from the standpoint of quality and a certain standard of ethics when it comes to cloned typefaces) come with a full complement of kerning pairs.

So everybody – get that Kerning Above turned ON and help stamp out ugly Windows typesetting!

One exception: if you are merge printing in WSWin, you must not use kerning pairs in the merged line. WSWin will not print a merge variable if Kerning Above is turned on.

Line Height Problems in WSWin

>> When I change font size, I have line height problems. I’ll use a headline of about 48 or 60 points, then text of 12 points in the paragraph. However, the line height between the banner and first line of paragraph text will be the same as the banner and the top of the margin; and what’s really odd, the line height between the first and second lines of the paragraph are also greater than the height between the second and all subsequent lines of the paragraph. By going into the MODIFY STYLE menu, I can make the line height greater and the style will apply to all lines, but I can’t seem to reduce the line height between that banner and the first 2 lines of the paragraph. <<

The way WSWin deals with line height (called leading, pronounced ledd-ing) is one of its most annoying characteristics. It’s fixable, though, once you know what’s going on and how to force it to do things your way.

WSWin uses what’s called Top of Caps Leading – unfortunately. It should use baseline to baseline leading, but I guess the programmers either didn’t understand why top of caps leading is bad or they mistakenly thought it made things easier for the vast majority of users who don’t have a clue about type. Top of caps leading figures line height from the top of the highest bounding box in the line. The bounding box is something in the metrics of the font and is not something users can discover or do anything about (unless you use a font editor, but that’s not relevant to the problem at hand). This method of figuring line height can result in uneven spacing between lines because the baseline of a particular line is determined from the top-of-caps font measurement for the tallest character in the line (which may not even look like the tallest character – this is determined by font metrics), so using a different font in a line – even just one character – can change the baseline for the entire line. I don’t know if you understand what I just said. It’s pretty technical but it’s also the reason you can have problems maintaining even baseline-to-baseline line spacing.

Top of Caps Leading is also partly responsible for the space above and below your headline that you don’t like. When the line height you use in your paragraph style differs from the point size of your font, the leading gets added to the bounding box size and that’s why there is so much space between the top of the headline type and the margin.

Look at your Heading paragraph style. If you’re using Arial at 48 pts. and at the WSWin autoleading suggested value of 57.6, you’ll have space between the top of the letters and the margin. I NEVER use autoleading; I despise autoleading! To get the top of your type almost at the margin, modify your Heading style so that your point size and line height are equal. If you’re using 48-pt. type, make your line height 48 pts. In screen 2, Paragraph, switch your Units to points and set the desired spacing above and below your heading style in the Space Above and Space Below boxes. Remember that you are setting a document wide paragraph style. If your headlines are always right under the top margin, set Space Above to 0 and set Space Below to what you want between the heading and the text. If your headings can come anywhere in the text, set your style so that you have the spacing you want between the heading and text above and below. But do it through the Space Above and Space Below boxes, NOT through Line Height. Always make your line height IN POINTS equal to your type size IN POINTS for headings.

If you have just a few headings that you want right under the margin, adjust the spacing FOR THE CURRENT PARAGRAPH STYLE. You can do that either in the Modify Paragraph Style screen 2 (making sure you have Current Paragraph bulleted) or by having your cursor in the headline with no text selected and clicking on your right mouse button. Pick Spacing in the popup menu and select 0 for Space Above. That will adjust your space above for just this paragraph.

For text paragraph styles, you don’t want to have your point size and line height the same. Don’t use autoleading! Set the line height so it’s appropriate for the text typeface. Typefaces with a tall x-height need more leading than typefaces with a small x-height. You don’t want lines to look crowded but you also want the text to hang together, so you don’t want excess space between lines. For Times New Roman at 12 point, I would use either 14-pt. or 15-pt. leading.

>> I’ll use a headline of about 48 or 60 points, then text of 12 points in the paragraph. However, the line height between the banner and first line of paragraph text will be the same as the banner and the top of the margin; and what’s really odd, the line height between the first and second lines of the paragraph are also greater than the height between the second and all subsequent lines of the paragraph. By going into the MODIFY STYLE menu, I can make the line height greater and the style will apply to all lines, but I can’t seem to reduce the line height between that banner and the first 2 lines of the paragraph. <<

I set up a test document to see whether I could duplicate this problem. I couldn’t. I used Times New Roman at 12 points with WSWin’s autoleading, which is 14.4 points. There was the same amount of space between the first and second lines of the paragraph as between all other lines of the paragraph. I could not make any line height adjustments that would cause the first two lines to have different heights than the rest of the lines.

What causes uneven line spacing is almost always another font in the line, a point size tag, or a stray tag. Switch to Draft Editor and be sure you have the tags displayed. Look for a font tag or a point size tag or a paragraph style tag in your first line and in the line above it (the heading, probably). A tag at the end of the line above your text paragraph can sometimes change the spacing in the first line. Actually, a font or point tag in the heading can change the baseline in the first line of text, also. If you find a stray tag, delete it and your line spacing should be okay. If the tag is for a font or point size change that you need, let me know and I’ll tell you how to make a change like that so it won’t upset your line spacing.

Another thing that often messes up even baseline spacing is a bullet put in through WSWin’s Round Bullet or Square Bullet paragraph styles or through the Bullet macro. The problem is that WSWin uses bullets from the Wingdings font, and the top of the Wingdings bounding box usually causes baseline shifts for the text font in the paragraph. As far as I’m concerned, those paragraph styles and the macro are worse than useless because they are so likely to mess up the line height. Put in your own bullets! See below, “A Great Undocumented Way to Trick WSWin into Using YOUR Leading Choice,” to learn how to keep even leading regardless of what font you may use in a line.

If you are in the habit of selecting a paragraph by highlighting the text and then changing the font or point size, that is a major source of these kinds of problems. Don’t do this – EVER! Change fonts and points in a paragraph by using paragraph styles – either for the current paragraph or document wide. But use the styles, use the styles, use the styles!!!!

Autoleading

Line spacing or line height and leading are more or less interchangeable terms today. They refer to the measurement from the baseline of one line to the baseline of the next. Leading is not the same as point size. If you were setting 10-point Times New Roman solid, for example, that would be 10-point Times on 10-point leading; the line spacing would be the same as the point size of the type. Ascenders and descenders of the type would probably not crash into each other because most typefaces include a little space above and below the character itself within the body size. Ordinarily, you would not want to set type solid. It’s hard to read and it makes you feel claustrophobic. You will add space between the lines of type, and that space is called leading (pronounced ledd-ing). The name comes from the days of metal type, when thin strips of metal were placed between lines of type formed from blocks of metal type.

When a computer program uses autoleading, the program assigns a percentage of point size automatically to space the lines. For WSWin and many other programs, the default for autoleading is 120% of point size. Thus, if you were using Times Roman 10-point, the program would automatically space the lines 12 points apart (120% of 10). If you were using 12-point type, the program would space the lines 14.4 points apart baseline to baseline. 36-point type would have lines spaced 43.2 points apart. And so on. Autoleading frees the user from having to make the decision about how far apart to space the lines. This makes it easier for the uninformed user who is not accustomed to deciding anything more complex than whether to use single-spaced or double-spaced lines. (As we see, singlespacing and doublespacing are meaningless in the context of scaleable type sizes; they are typewriter terms.)

The problem is that with type, as with clothing, one size doesn’t fit all. Typefaces vary greatly in design. Some have a tall x-height, which makes the characters look larger at a given point size but reduces the apparent space between the lines (apparent being what it looks like, not what it actually is). Some have a small x-height, which makes the type look smaller and increases the visual space between lines. While autoleading of 120% isn’t too bad for many text faces at text size, it is much better to decide on leading based on the appearance of the typeface, its x-height, and the line measure (how long the lines are). Long lines need more leading than short lines because the eye needs to move without confusion to the next line and the white space helps guide the eye. Too much leading or space between the lines makes the page fall apart and it becomes hard to read. As point size goes up, the amount of space needed between the lines goes down. For 36-point type the line spacing should probably be closer to 38 points than 43.2 points. Two- or three-line headings with too much space between the lines are a giveaway that an untrained amateur is laying out the page.

And that’s why autoleading is A Bad Thing. It gives the page designer the illusion that the type can be set automatically, when in fact it can’t if quality is your goal. Autoleading also makes it impossible to adhere to a leading grid when you are laying out your pages, which means baselines of type across columns will probably not line up and the page will thus look sloppy. Autoleading will also put more space around lines that contain different typefaces. In WSWin, for example, if you stuck a 12-point bullet into a line of 10-point type, that line would take on 14.4 leading, even if you specified 12-point leading for the 10-point type. The autoleading overrides the leading you specify in this case. (This is not necessarily the case with higher-end programs like PageMaker.)

How to Get Rid of Autoleading

In WSWin or Xoom Word Pro, you get rid of autoleading by specifying the line height in a paragraph style. Don’t just type in the point size; also tab over to and change the line height to what you decide it should be for that typeface and your line length.

Unfortunately, there is no way to switch off autoleading entirely so that WSWin would not assign anything but the leading you select. Do NOT highlight blocks of type and change the point size. If you do this, WSWin will put in autoleading for this and you can’t change it unless you get rid of the tags that change the point size and/or typeface. This is why I have said many times that you need to use paragraph styles if you want to do a decent job of getting good type in your documents. Don’t highlight and make changes, use paragraph styles.

A Great Undocumented Way to Trick WSWin into Using YOUR Leading Choice

Suppose you want to use a different typeface or point size within a line and it messes up the leading. If you merely highlight and make changes through the Style Bar, you run a high risk of uneven line spacing. Here’s how you can fix this:

 Create a paragraph style for the typeface and point size you want to use and make the point size and line height EQUAL for that paragraph style. For example, if you want to use a 9-point Wingdings character as a bullet, make your paragraph style (“Wingdings”) 9/9 (9 point type size on 9 point line height).

 When you want to use that character, highlight the character you will change and Apply Paragraph Style to it. In order for this to work, you’ll have to have your Preferences set up, under Procedures, with Selected Text Only bulleted under Applying Paragraph Styles to Selected Text Should Affect:.

When type size and line height are the same for these characters, the leading for the rest of the line will take over (assuming it’s higher than the special Paragraph Style you just created).

Because when I use a dingbat or bullet it usually doesn’t come from the typeface used in the rest of the paragraph, I have styles set up in my documents for whatever fonts I’m using for these elements. This works flawlessly and my line spacing is always spot on. I would not tolerate uneven line spacing.

Figuring Line Height and Lines Per Inch

>> One more thing is needed, a table to convert line-height to lines per inch on the printed page. From old WS7d and earlier WS5.5 I tried " equals a point but then somehow on WSW/2 setting a line height of 10.67 isn’t close to six lines per inch on the page. <<

If you want six lines to the inch, set your WSWin line height for your paragraph styles to 12 points. Twelve points equal one pica, six picas equal one inch. This is the standard for picas and points on computers. You need to use PARAGRAPH STYLES to get your selected line height. If you simply select a point size, autoleading will kick in and you won’t get six lines to the inch unless you’re using 10-point type.

A table would certainly be handy, but I don’t know if such a thing is available or where to get it. You can figure it out for yourself, however. A standard 8 by 11 page is 66 picas long. 66 times 12 equals 792, so an 11-inch page is 792 points long. You set line height in points. Divide 792 by your line height and you’ll see how many lines will fit on a page. Make appropriate adjustments for your margins. You can use Windows calculator to do the math.

Aligning Baselines across Columns

One of the most common giveaways of amateur DTP is the chaotic misalignment of baselines across columns that we see so often these days. It’s not difficult to get rock-solid baseline alignment but few amateurs know how to do it and most manuals and mass-market books don’t tell you how.

The key to having all text baselines aligned across columns is to use a leading grid – that’s pronounced “ledd-ing.” Leading is the technical term for line height or line spacing. You already had some hint of doing this:

>> My guess was that the title frames were causing the problem, and so I tried to make the height of the frames an exact multiple of the body text line height. However, the text in the third column is still out of alignment with the text in the first two. <<

You’re headed in the right direction but didn’t go far enough. You actually need to design your pages with a leading grid in mind.

How to Set Up a Leading Grid

First you decide on the leading (line height) for your running text. You must NEVER, EVER use that accursed autoleading that WSWin is programmed to try to force upon you at every turn. Autoleading will throw everything off. Perhaps you will decide to set your text at 10/12 (ten points on 12 points leading). You would then use a 12-point leading grid. You now define or modify all paragraph styles you’ll be using so that their line height or leading is a multiple of 12 points. Space Before and Space After must also fit into the leading grid. To give an example, say you want to use 24-point Arial for Heading1. I would set it up as 24/24 (point size and line height) and would set up Space Before at 8 points and Space After at 4 points. So we have 24 plus 8 plus 4 to give 36 points, which is a multiple of 12. For subheads I’d modify Heading2 to Arial 12 on 12, Space Before at 9 points, Space After at 3 points. 12+9+3=24, a multiple of 12. Switch your Unit of measurement to Points in the Paragraph screen of the Modify Paragraph Style dialog boxes to make it possible for you to be accurate in determining point spacing before and after.

Note that if you are working with a paragraph style for one-line paragraphs (such as some headings and subheads), your multiple of the leading grid is the sum of the line height plus the space before and space after. That is what must equal a multiple of the grid leading. Subheads should have more space above the subhead than below it. The space should not be equal and it should never be greater below the subhead than above it. You want it to be obvious that the subhead goes with what follows.

You must also set up your document top and bottom margins so that they conform to the leading grid. That’s easy with a 12-point or 1-pica grid because a typical 1-inch margin is 6 picas or 72 points – multiples of 12. Generally you want your bottom margin to be larger than your top margin because a too-small bottom margin looks like the text is sinking off the page.

Now for the next very important step. Go to Frame menu, Snap to, and put a check by Page Grid and by Show Page Grid. Now set up the page grid dimensions to 6 points Horizontal and 12 points Vertical. IT IS CRUCIAL THAT YOU SNAP FRAMES TO THE PAGE GRID!!

Snapping to the Grid

If you want to insert frames for headings that span columns, the top and bottom of the frame need to snap to the grid. If it looks like there’s too much or too little space between the heading in a text frame and the running text that follows, either adjust the size of the frame BUT ALWAYS SNAPPING TOP AND BOTTOM TO THE GRID or adjust the size of the type inside the frame.

In order to keep your baselines aligned across columns, all your frames must snap to the grid. As long as you adhere to the grid inside the frames, too, the text inside the frame will align also. You also must adhere strictly to the grid when you set up line height for your paragraph styles. Subheads and headings don’t need to align with text baseline, but text that follows them should – and will, if you do what I suggest.

But suppose you’re not using a 12-point grid? It’s often not the best size. Say you decide to set text 11/14 (11-point type on 14-point line height). Now your page grid would be 14 points. All your paragraph styles must conform to a multiple of 14 points. So perhaps your subheads would be 13/13 with Space Before of 11 points and Space After of 4 points (28 points is 2 times 14). Once you adjust the styles you’re using to multiples of 14-point line height, you also MUST – yes, MUST – adjust your top and bottom margins to fit on the leading grid. I think it’s easiest to do this interactively, though you could also do it mathematically (i.e., your top margin would be a multiple of 14 points). You must go back to Frame menu, Snap to, and change your Vertical Grid to 14 points. Be sure Snap to Grid is checked. Now go to Insert menu, Text frame, and place a small text frame so that the top of the frame is about where you want the top margin of the page to be. I always work in picas but you could do this with any other measurement, too. When I insert the frame, I notice the Top measurement box in the Frame Bar and write it down if I think I won’t remember. Now do Frame menu, Margins, and change the Top margin setting for the PageText frame style to the top setting of the frame you just inserted. Now delete that frame, which you don’t need anymore. To get a bottom margin on the leading grid, do Insert menu, Text frame, and position it so the top of the little frame snaps to the grid at the location of the desired bottom margin. Notice the Top measurement in the Frame Bar. Subtract it from the length of the page measurement. Example: A US letter-size page is 66 picas long. On a 14-pt. leading grid, if I want a bottom margin of around an inch, I can have one at 7.67 picas (6 picas is an inch) or at 6.5 or at 5.33 (less than an inch). Again, you insert a small frame and snap the top of the frame to the grid at the place where you want the bottom margin, read out the top location from the Frame Bar, subtract that from the page length, and change your bottom margin *for the PageText frame style* to the result of the subtraction.

Why You MUST Have Your Top and Bottom Margins Conform to the Leading Grid

If they don’t, your baselines will get out of line as text flows into a column or you insert frames. Your lines must fit accurately into the page space and they must fit on the grid. If they do, everything will line up as long as you adhere to the grid.

Ihave done this hundreds of times and I can tell you it works – always! If your baselines aren’t lining up across columns, it’s because you’ve done something wrong. Once you get used to working with a leading grid, you’ll never want to work any other way.

There is a lot more I could add about how to make adjustments for multi-line headings, how to get headings so the top of the type line is at the top margin, and many other things, but I think there is already more than enough to absorb in this message!

P.S. The Snap To feature of WSWin is powerful, versatile, and extremely useful. Anyone who works with frames should learn how to use it. You also need to change what you are Snapping To frequently, depending on what you are doing with a frame. I have an icon for Snap To on my Toolbox because I use Snap To so often. Since I customize everything, I don’t remember if the Snap To icon is on the Toolbox by default, but if it isn’t, you should add it.

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