Strikethrough, superscript and letter spacing in Publish

Some of the most useful text formatting is also the smallest. Publish by Zaweba has strikethrough, superscript, subscript and character spacing, and each of them solves a particular problem that comes up again and again on flyers, menus, certificates and posters.

Superscript has its own shortcut, Ctrl+Shift+=, and character spacing is set under Format > Character. The rest sit with the other character formatting you apply to selected text.

Strikethrough for sales and changes

Strikethrough draws a line through the middle of the selected text. Its most familiar use is the sale price: the old price struck through beside the new one. Shoppers read that instantly, and it makes a discount feel real without any extra words.

It is also handy on a programme or a notice where something has changed and you want people who saw the old version to understand what moved. A struck through time followed by the new one is clearer than quietly replacing it. Use it sparingly, though. Too much struck through text makes a page look like a rough draft.

Superscript and subscript

Superscript raises characters and makes them smaller. Dates such as 1st and 21st, footnote markers, square metres and the little "th" in an invitation all use it. Select the characters and press Ctrl+Shift+=, and they move up into place.

Subscript does the opposite, lowering and shrinking characters. It is mostly for chemistry and maths, such as the 2 in H2O or CO2, but it turns up on school posters, science fair displays and technical leaflets. Getting it right looks careful; leaving the numbers at full size looks like a typo.

Keep superscript for things that really are raised. It is tempting to use it to make text smaller, but a normal smaller font size reads better for that.

Character spacing for headlines and labels

Character spacing, under Format > Character, changes the gap between letters across a selection. Large headlines often benefit from a little tighter spacing, because the natural gaps between letters look bigger at large sizes. Short words in capitals, such as SALE, MENU or TICKET, often look better with a little more space between the letters, which gives them an airy, deliberate look.

It is also a quiet way to make a line fit. If a headline is just a few letters too long for one line, a very slight tightening can bring it back without changing the font size. Go gently; squeezing letters until they touch makes words hard to read.

Body text is generally best left at normal spacing. The font designer has already set it for reading at text sizes, and changing it across whole paragraphs tends to make the text look either cramped or loose.

Using them with styles

If you find yourself applying the same formatting again and again, such as spaced capitals for every section label on a menu, make a character style for it. Then a single change to the style updates every label, and a new label is one click instead of three.

These touches survive the trip to PDF. The text stays real and selectable, so a struck through price, a superscript date or a spaced headline is still text in the exported file, not a picture of text.

A quick checklist

Before you send a menu or a price list off, scan for the places these small tools should be used and are not. Prices that have dropped, dates with ordinals, units with powers and capitals that look cramped are the usual suspects. Each fix takes a few seconds in Publish by Zaweba, and together they make the finished piece look as though someone cared about the details.