Change case, word count and composition checks in Layout

Small text chores add up on a long job. A list of names arrives in capitals, a headline needs to be sentence case to match the house style, an editor wants to know whether a feature is on length. Layout by Zaweba keeps a handful of tools for exactly these jobs in the Type menu, so they don't send you off to another program.

Alongside them sit two checks that matter more than they look: converting automatic bullets, numbering and fields into ordinary text, and highlighting the lines where spacing or keep rules have gone wrong.

Changing case without retyping

Type > Change case offers UPPERCASE, lowercase, Title Case and Sentence case. Select the text and choose one. It is quicker and safer than retyping, because the letters themselves don't change, only their case, so you can't introduce a typo.

Typical uses are a table of names supplied in capitals that needs to read normally, a set of headings where some were typed in title case and some not, or a caption that should be sentence case to match the rest. Title and sentence case follow simple rules and can't know that a word is a proper name or an acronym, so read the result and fix the odd brand name or place.

Changing case is different from the all caps character setting. All caps only displays the text in capitals; the letters underneath stay as typed, and turning the setting off brings them back. Change case actually rewrites the letters. For a heading style that should always look capitalised, all caps in the style is better. For text that is simply wrong, change case is the fix.

Counting words

Word count tells you how long a story or selection is. Editors work in words, not column inches, so it is the quickest way to answer "is this on length?" when a feature has a commissioned length, or to see how much a writer needs to cut to fit a spread. Count the selection to check a single panel or box, or the story to check the whole article across its threaded frames.

Turning bullets, numbering and fields into text

Automatic bullets and numbers are generated by the paragraph settings, and fields such as text variables are filled in by Layout. That is usually what you want, because they update. Sometimes, though, you need them as real characters. A numbered list that has to stay exactly as it is when copied elsewhere, a running header that must not change when the document moves, or a story you are about to export as plain text are all good reasons.

Converting them to text freezes what you see into ordinary characters. After that they won't renumber or update, so do it as a final step, and keep a copy of the document with the live versions if you might need to edit the list again.

Composition highlights for spacing and keeps

Composition highlights mark lines where the composer has had to break its own rules: spacing that is too loose or too tight in justified text, and places where keep options can't be met, such as a paragraph meant to stay with the next one, or lines meant to stay together, that has been forced apart.

They are a proofing aid. Turn them on, scan each spread, and deal with what you find. A loose line can often be fixed by editing a word, adjusting tracking slightly on the paragraph or changing hyphenation. A keep violation usually means the frame or column is too short for what you've asked of the text, and the answer is to change the layout or relax the rule rather than to fight it line by line.

Where these checks sit in a proofing routine

A sensible order for a finished story: run word count to confirm the length, fix any case problems in headings and lists, turn on composition highlights and clear the worst lines, then let live preflight check overset text and the technical side. Convert bullets and fields to text only if the job truly needs it. None of these steps takes long, and together they catch the things readers would notice and an automatic check wouldn't.