Hanging punctuation and vertical frames in Layout by Zaweba

Punctuation at the edge of a column is a small thing that the eye notices more than it should. A quotation mark, a comma or a hyphen at the start or end of a line takes up space without carrying much visual weight, so a perfectly straight column can look as if it has a dent in it. Layout by Zaweba deals with this by letting punctuation hang just outside the margin, so the letters line up and the column looks straight.

The same group of options covers two other ways of setting text that ordinary word processors rarely offer: vertical text frames and right-to-left paragraphs. They sit together because all three are about the shape of a line on the page rather than the words in it.

Why hanging punctuation makes columns look straighter

A justified column is measured to the edge of each character box. Optically, though, a line that starts with an opening quote begins a little further in than a line starting with a capital letter, because the quote is thin and light. Pull quotes, headings set large and long passages of dialogue show it most. With hanging punctuation turned on, those marks sit at the margin edge, slightly outside it, and the strong shapes of the letters form the real edge of the column.

The effect is subtle at body sizes and obvious at display sizes. On a magazine cover line or a big pull quote, an opening quote that sits inside the margin pushes the whole first line in, and the quote looks like a mistake. Hanging it fixes that without you having to nudge anything by hand.

It works best on text that is justified or aligned to a clear edge. On centred text there is no edge to align to, so there is little to gain. Keep it the same across a whole story too, since a column with hanging punctuation next to one without can look uneven when they sit side by side on a spread.

Setting text in vertical frames

Vertical text frames run the lines from top to bottom instead of left to right. They are useful for spine text on a book or a box, for labels running up the side of a page, for tall narrow banners on a poster and for decorative headings in a fashion or arts layout. Because the frame stays a text frame, the words remain editable and styled like any other text, rather than being turned into a picture or outlines.

That matters when the wording changes late. A rotated picture of a title has to be remade; a vertical frame just needs retyping. It also keeps the text in the document's styles, so a change to the heading font reaches the spine as well. For Chinese, Japanese and Korean text, Layout has a fuller set of vertical type controls of its own, and vertical frames are where that work happens.

Right-to-left paragraphs

Right-to-left paragraphs run the line from the right edge and are the starting point for setting Hebrew or Arabic. The direction is a paragraph setting, so a document can mix English paragraphs with right-to-left ones in the same story. A bilingual programme, a menu in two languages or a community newsletter can then be built in one document and one set of styles. Alignment, indents and the side the first line starts from follow the direction, so you are not fighting the layout to make a paragraph read the right way.

Getting the most from these three options

Build them into paragraph styles rather than switching them on paragraph by paragraph. A pull quote style with hanging punctuation, a spine style for vertical frames and a right-to-left body style keep the document consistent, and if you change your mind later you change one style. Check the result in Preview screen mode, with frame edges and guides out of the way, because hanging punctuation is about how the edge looks, and guides make that hard to judge.

Two mistakes are common. The first is hanging punctuation in a narrow frame with very little inset, where hung marks can come close to the frame's edge or a neighbouring column; give the frame a touch of room. The second is setting a right-to-left language in a paragraph still marked left to right, which leaves the punctuation and line starts in the wrong place even though the letters look fine at a glance. Set the direction first, then the text.

These are quiet features, and that is the point. Readers will never notice punctuation hanging in the margin, only that the page looks right.