Leading and Kerning in QuarkXPress and InDesign

Some basic information on the air between the letters.

Some of the first things that any designer will be taught when they learn this discipline is letterforms. One quickly finds out that letters are, to state the obvious, more than just simple squiggles of ink on paper (or, in this case, dark pixels on a screen). They can be pretty high-maintenance.

They want their space. They require respect. They can be choosy about how they treat their neighbors.

They have needs.

The most important needs of this demanding bunch are called leading and kerning. Until the advent of electronic layout, it was all up to type foundries. In this modern world, it’s up to you, the designer. The aggregation applications we have available now give us unprecedented power to control this type riot.

The particular needs you have to satisfy are called *leading* and *kerning*, and we’ll take those on here.

Leading and Kerning Defined

We’ll go out on a sort of a limb here and assume anyone who’s gotten this far probably know what leading and kerning are. In the interests of complete information, though, we’ll give you a couple of quick and dirty definitions.

Leading, actually pronounced “LEDD ing”, is the word typographers and designers use to specify the distance between baselines in a paragraph. Typically they are expressed in points, and usually stated with the point size of the type (for example, an 8-point Palatino Book defined with 12 points of leading would be spec’d as “8/12 Palatino Book”, spoken “eight on twelve Palatino Book”). Leading can be positive (what one typically sees in text type), negative (resulting in ascenders and descenders interacting or overlapping in successive lines of type), or equal to the type size (10 point type with 10 points of leading, 10/10, for example), and is called “Set solid”.

Kerning refers to the visual separation of letterforms. This can be expressed as a noun, or as a verb (we speak of “kerning letters” or “kern the V and the A tighter please”. The object is to balance out the paper color between the letterforms, working toward an even type color or visual sense of “rightness”. In electronic layout, kerning is expressed as a number or percentage number of “kerning units”, which are fractions of an em (this being relative to the basic size information of the font itself). Positive leading (”loose”) spaces letterforms out, negative leading (”tight”) moves letterforms closer together.

Kerning can be equally distributed over parts of or entire sentences or paragraphs. We typically call this tracking. Local use can vary; some call this range kerning.

How to do Leading and Kerning in InDesign

Pictured here is the InDesign character palette, where kerning and leading are controlled and changed. Default values are shown in the boxes, and the properties they control are iconically displayed next to each box. The kerning (box 1) is set to “Metrics”, meaning that the inherent font information (including predefined “kerning pairs”) will be used to define the overall kerning. The leading reads “(14.4 pt)” and the parenthesis are important here; they alert us to the fact that we are using the Auto setting to determine leading (InDesign’s default is 120% of point size). The tracking is set to 0 kerning units.

InDesignCS2’s Character palette controls: 1-Kerning, 2-Leading, 3-Tracking

To kern type, that is, to adjust the space between two letters only, all that is necessary is to use the type tool to place the text insertion point between two letters in a story and either adjust the amount in the box via pulldown, arrow up and down, or typing in a number in the box (which can either be a simple number representing the number of kerning units or a percentage, which is the fraction of an em. When typing numbers into the box the amounts can be further tweaked by using the up/down arrow keys to increase and decrease them by preset steps.

The kerning pulldown also features two verbal selections: the aforementioned “Metrics” and “Optical”. These automatically derive amounts based on the type size and two different approaches to defining the space between type.

The other two specifications, leading and tracking, operate similarly but require the use of the type tool to select a range of type or lines before executing the change.

InDesign Automatic Leading

Automatic leading is, in InDesign, set at 120% by default (a type size of 10 points will be automatically set to 12 points leading). This default can be altered (to up to 500%!) by clicking in the paragraph with the type tool, going to the Paragraph palette or the Paragraph mode of the Control Palette and selecting “Justification” from the flyout menu (or CMD-SHIFT-OPT-J on Mac, CTRL-SHIFT-OPT J in Win). Set the desired amount in the “Auto Leading:” box.

Leading and Kerning in QuarkXPress

In QuarkXPress one can still vary kerning, leading, and tracking by typing numbers into the boxes (immediately to the left of the justification selection buttons), either points, kerning units, or percentages.

QuarkXPress 6.5 Measurements palette showing where you can quickly vary leading and kerning

The boxes are not annotated, so one must learn that the leading input box is the upper box and the kerning/leading box is the lower one. Good clues surround them: the leading box has vertical adjustment arrows arranged vertically, and the kerning/tracking box has horizontal adjustment arrows arranged horizontally.

To adjust leading in QuarkXPress: first use the content tool to place the text insertion point in the paragraph (or select a range) then either type the point amount in the box, increase the given leading by prepending a plus or minus before the desired amount of increase/decrease, or select automatic leading by typing the word ‘auto’. One can also bring up the Style dialog to adjust leading by using the keyboard shortcut CMD-SHIFT-E (CTRL-SHIFT-E in Win), or adjust leading on the fly by .1 of a point by using CMD-SHIFT-OPT-; (Win:CTRL-SHIFT-ALT-;) to increase and CMD-SHIFT-OPT-’ (Win: CTRL-SHIFT-ALT-’) to decrease. One can also use the arrow icons to adjust the leading in one-point steps.

Unlike InDesign, leading changes are instantly applied to the entire selected paragraph without having to select a range.

QuarkXPress uses the same box to control both kerning and tracking, the crucial difference being selection. If adjusting kerning from the Measurement Palette, simply place the text insertion point between two letterforms; if adjusting tracking, select a range. Then, either enter an absolute value in the kerning box, use CMD-SHIFT-OPT-{ (Win:CTRL-SHIFT-ALT-}) to increase by 1/200 em on the fly or CMD-SHIFT-OPT-} (Win:CTRL-SHIFT-ALT-}) to decrease. The arrow icons increase/decrease by 1/200 em; the amount can also be varied by the Style Menu (Style>Kern).

Different Approaches

Even on the basic level, there is one thing every designer should be aware of when using either QuarkXPress or InDesign, and this is that kerning and tracking are not quite created equal. QuarkXPress will kern to 1/200th of an em, but InDesign is much, much finer, providing kerning down to 1/1000th of an em.

The following two illustrations depict the difference. Both are in the Times Regular font, 140 pt, 450% zoom, with kerning set to -150 kerning units in both QuarkXPress and InDesign.

-150 kerning in InDesign:

As can be seen, a kerning of -150 in InDesign looks normal, acceptable for many layouts. Now, the same setting in QuarkXPress:

However, when -150 kerning is specified in QuarkXPress, the result is quite surprising. This is because -150 kerning units in XPress give a result of .75 of an em, which has the result of almost completely shifting the following character around to the front of the preceding character! The same values in InDesign give only a .15 em leftward shift.

This is not to say that kerning is better in InDesign as opposed to XPress, only that one gives finer control than the other. Individual preferences can be expected vary.

Why care?

Just the basics of leading and kerning can become quite complex if one decides to take it to a certain level. Why should we be knowledgeable about these?

Leading and kerning are two essential bases for typesetting. But just like any design, given the circumstances and the message one is trying to communicate various and differing approaches to leading and kerning text type might be called for.

Setting type where communication of information is paramount, for instance, textbooks, novels, and other such works, will depend on text to communicate the information but not so much the attitude of the work-a great deal of the time, the overall design approach communicates the attitude or the atmosphere of the printed piece. Leading take a big part of the approach here; properly selected leading can enhance the communicative power of the text by providing the right amount of air between the lines, reinforcing readability. We ought to properly select the kerning and tracking and leave it be as much as possible (outside the necessity to copyfit) in accordance with Goudy’s Proposition (He who would letterspace lower case would also steal sheep).

In more artistic presentations–brochures, posters, and the like–the type and the space around it and between the letterforms may be expected to carry more of the attitudinal weight of the communication. If the presentation is suffiently “edgy”, why not let the letterforms intersect and collide to create a chaotic feel?

Above all, it’s important to use these tools with knowing, whether or not we use automatic settings. Anything less is “letting the computer design” your work, which is something the educated designer ought never do.