How to typeset Chinese, Japanese or Korean vertically

Draw a frame with the Vertical type tool in Layout by Zaweba, or turn existing text vertical with Type > Text direction, and Chinese, Japanese or Korean text runs top to bottom with the characters upright. Layout adds the things vertical setting needs: line-break rules, character spacing, ruby, emphasis marks, two-line notes, horizontal in vertical for short runs of figures, frame grids and a Layout grid that sets characters per line, lines, columns and direction.

Vertical text is still the expected form for novels, poetry and many magazines in Japan, and it turns up in Chinese and Korean design too. Doing it well takes more than rotating a frame, because the rules of the page change with the direction.

Choosing vertical or horizontal

Use the Vertical type tool for a new vertical frame. For a frame you already have, Type > Text direction switches it. A document can mix both, which is common in magazines where body text runs vertically and headings or captions run across.

The Layout grid is the place to set up a document built around characters rather than measurements. You give it the number of characters per line, the number of lines, columns and the direction, and the page is planned on that basis. Frame grids then show the character cells inside a frame, so text sits on a regular pattern the way a reader of these languages expects.

Line breaks and spacing

East Asian typesetting has strict rules about which characters may begin or end a line. Closing brackets and certain punctuation must not start a line, and opening brackets must not end one. Layout's line-break rules handle this, with a strong or weak set of rules depending on how strict you want to be, and a choice of pushing characters in to the line or out to the next when a rule would otherwise be broken. Hanging punctuation lets a full stop or comma sit just outside the line, which keeps the column edges clean.

Character spacing settings control the gaps between different kinds of characters, such as between ideographs and punctuation or between Japanese and Latin text. Getting these right is much of what makes a page look professionally set rather than just typed.

Ruby, emphasis and notes

Ruby is the small reading guide set alongside a character, called furigana in Japanese. It shows how to read an uncommon character and is essential in children's books and educational material. Emphasis marks are the dots or small symbols placed beside characters for stress, the equivalent of italics. Two-line notes set a short aside in two small lines within the main line, a traditional way of adding a gloss.

Horizontal in vertical keeps short runs of digits or Latin letters upright and reading across inside a vertical line, so a two-digit year or a short abbreviation doesn't have to be stacked character by character.

Putting a job together

Start with fonts made for the language, with good coverage of the characters you need. Set up the Layout grid and parent pages first. Build paragraph styles that hold the line-break rules, spacing and ruby settings, so they apply consistently. Then flow the text in.

Remember that a vertical book usually binds on the right, with pages read right to left, so plan spreads accordingly. Check page numbers and running heads work the way the reader expects.

Before export, run live preflight. Missing glyphs are among the things it checks, which is important with large character sets where a font may lack an uncommon character. A careful proofread by a native reader is still the last word, but the mechanics of vertical setting are all there to get you most of the way.