When you set a block of type, the text wrap may need some tweaking if the line length is too short for the font size. (Rule of thumb: if the line length in picas is smaller than the font size in points, then character and word spacing will suffer.) Try these tips to smooth the rag or decrease word spacing:
Increase the number of consecutive hyphens allowed, as well as the minimum number of characters that must appear before or after a hyphen. In QuarkXPress, choose Edit> H&Js.
Note that QuarkXPress 7 and 8 include presets that will do this for you. They’re named
“Narrow Measure” and “Very Narrow Measure”.
If your text needs more help, try slightly decreasing its tracking in QuarkXPress’s Measurements palette. You can make the change either in the Classic tab:
or in the Character Attributes tab:
November 10th, 2008 at 8:40 am
I have a client that
likes the text in its
documents to have
a tight rag, like this.
I’ve never quite un-
derstood if there is
or isn’t a way to
control this auto-
matically within
QuarkXPress. “Flush
Zone” sounds like
what I need, but I
think I remember
reading once that
that only applies to
block justification.
How about an article
(with visuals) showing
how all of that Min/
Opt/Max. stuff works
T H A N K S
November 13th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Good idea! Maybe I’ll record a video tutorial that explains what each thing does. Thanks for the idea.