Get your type under control, dang it!

InDesign Techniques
Paragraph Styles
Defining and using styles is important
for two main reasons. First, it makes
it very easy to make changes. For in-
stance, instead of going through all
your headers and changing the point
size a half-point, you can just make
one change to see how it looks through-
out your document. Second, styles pro-
mot consistency. You can’t have that
mistake where you left one line a
quarter-point larger than the rest of
your text. For type changes within the
paragraph (like italics), styles are
easily over-ridden.
Columns & text threading
Chances are good that you will want
more than one column on a page (see
Length of text lines). In InDesign you
should thread the text frames together
across colums and across pages.
Type aesthetics
The point
The point of typography, and also pret-
ty much all of design, is to comuni-
cate clearly and beautifully. We want
to attract the reader and have them
think about what is said, not about
the design. The best design is invis-
ible to the reader.
Learn from the experts
When you are doing any project that
requires text you can easily learn how
it is done with instruction by some of
the world’s best designers. Just pick
up a magazine or a book. Look closely.
What is the type choice, point size,
leading? How are the headers done, how

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 is the right margin handled? Etcetera.
Body Copy (extended reading type like
the paragraph below)
Break the typewriter
Typewriters haven’t been around for a
while, but many people still cling to
their limitations. Don’t underline —
instead use italic or bold. Don’t put
two spaces after a sentence — comput-
ers can figure out the correct space
to put after a period with one space.
Use the correct dash: Hyphens con-
nect words that make up one word or
spread a word across lines. En dashes
(command+hyphen keys) connect numbers
or words like in dates or addresses.
Em dashes (command+shift+hyphen keys)
connect thoughts in a sentence. More
info on Wikipedia...
Body copy text choices
Serifs fonts are easier to read and
many are classic looking. Sans ser-
if can look cleaner, simpler and more
modern. The little tags on the end of
serif letters help the eye distinguish
one letter from another, which is im-
portant because when we read we read
patterns, not letters. There are ex-
ceptions to this, such as type on a on
a low-resolution screen and short bits
of big type (like headers). Type size
is also important, and unfortunately
can only be judged in a print (if that
is the final medium). Different type-
styles will look different sizes at the
same point size, but generaly point
sizes from 8 to 11 are good. Type that
is too large looks awkward and ama-
teurish, and type that is too small is
hard to read. And never use decorative

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type for your text unless you don’t
want anyone to read it. Times and Hel-
vetica are bad choices if only because
they are over-used.
Alignment
Justified left and ragged right is the
best option, but if you want your page
more regimented, or if your columns are
close together, you might want to use
fully justified type (left and right).
Watch the spacing of your words when
you fully justify, and to help word
spacing you should probably have hy-
phenation turned on. Centered text and
ragged left text are really just for
special purposes. Save them for your
poetry.
Leading
How much leading to set is a person-
al thing, and it also depends on what
you need. Too little leading will make
your lines crowded and jumbled. Too
much leading will make your body of
text look unconnected with itself and
give the feeling of stripes. Start
with a leading 2 points larger than
your type size and print it out to see
if you need more (or less).
Length of text lines
A general rule of thumb is to keep
lines to 50-60 characters (letters and
spaces). Too long text lines makes it
hard for the reader to pick up the
next line as they are reading. If you
want to use longer lines, keep the
text down to only three or four lines
and do not fully justify it. Increas-
ing leading will also help. Very short
lines of text should never be fully
justified, since the word spacing will

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 suffer, even with hyphenation. There
are controls in InDesign with which
you can vary how words are spaced and
how they are hyphenated, but for now
just make sure you don’t have ‘rivers’
of white space running down your body
copy from poorly spaced words.
Paragraphs
Paragraphs are good. They group the
text into inviting chunks and help the
reader skim. Paragraphs can be sepa-
rated with a line return or by indent-
ing the beginning of each paragraph
after the first. The ideal indentation
is usually around the width of the let-
ter ‘M’ in your typestyle (that width
is called an ‘em’), but some designers
use a bit more.
Italic and Bold
Italic and bold versions of your type-
face are great ways of emphasizing
words or separating them from the rest
of the text. Get used to using them.
Color changes can also be used for the
same purpose, although that technique
is much less common.
Header & Title Text
Headers
Make sure your headers and titles play
nice with your body copy text. They
don’t have to be in the same typestyle
at all, and often times serifs and sans
serif styles are mixed between headers
and body copy. Whatever your choice of
header typestyle or size, make sure it
doesn’t speak too loud (usually too
bold or big) or too soft in comparison
to your body copy. All caps is fine in
headers. All caps is harder too read,
but headers are short.

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Fun with type
The point of typography is to communi-
cate, not show how many fonts you can
use or how ‘creative’ you are (ugg).
Use as few fonts as possible, and don’t
beat the user with decorative fonts.
Layout and what is said can communi-
cate something like ‘fun’ better than
Comic Sans. Decorative fonts work best
when they silently quietly communicate
a mood.
Kerning
Headers should always be scanned to
see if they need any letters kerned.
Body copy doesn’t generally need it at
all (whew), but if it is not good try
setting InDesign’s kerning to ‘opti-
cal’ or better yet, change your typ-
estyle to something with better ‘kern-
ing pairs’ built in.
There is much more to typography, but
this should get you started. A well
set page with a good layout is invit-
ing and beautiful. You have seen them,
but I am sure you haven’t noticed them.
That was the designer’s intent.

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