Tab Leaders, Drop Caps, and Hanging Punctuation in InDesign and QuarkXPress. (Page 3)

Hanging Punctuation – What is it, and why?

There are some situations in setting type – pull quotes, block quotes, for example – where a strong left margin is attractive. Simply aligning all type to the left doesn’t produce the desired effect; punctuation such as quotes or bullets give the impression of an indent. This is fine, if an indent is what is wanted.

It just so happens that if the punctuation is moved out beyond the strong edge of the type, and the letterform next to it optically aligns with the margin below. The eye sees the lineup of the letterforms further reinforced, and the impression of a clean margin is achieved.

Hanging Punctuation in InDesign

Automatically speaking, it’s a two-step procedure in InDesign, after selecting the text frame; Open the Story palette (Window>Type & Tables>Story) and check “Optical Margin Alignment”. It happens, just like that.

Hanging Punctuation in QuarkXPress

QuarkXPress has no automatic way, from a typesetting approach, to accomplish hanging punctuation; it’s a hands-on process and requires a bit of faith.

We’ve heard of a few ways to do this, but so far the best comes from fellow Designorati contrbitor Jeremy Schultz:

• Put a space before the mark (such as the open quote mark)
• Move your cursor between the space and mark
• Use negative kerning to move the mark and text back until the first text character lines up with the left edge of the rest of the text

The faith comes from the fact that when the punctuation is negatively-kerned out, as it crosses the edge of the text box it disappears. It does, however, print.

While more work than simply checking a box, it can be a method for those interested in precision control. And, since it depends on a function common to both applications (kerning), this method works in InDesign as well, the only difference being that in InDesign the punctuation can still be seen.

Did We Miss Anything?

Those are the basics; we’re certain that there are a few other ways to the goal. Did we leave anything out? Don’t keep it to yourself – feel free to use the comments to add your own favorite methods of making up these typographic tricks!