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Hair Space in Affinity Publisher


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I like to use eighth space or half quarter space for spaces between numbers in the typesetting. Affinity Publisher offers the hair space. If I use a double hair space, I feel that this corresponds to the eighth space. Can anyone of you please tell me if this is true?

Thanks in advance, deister fox

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32 minutes ago, deister fox said:

Can anyone of you please tell me if this is true?

I would say you should just do what looks good to your eye.

As far as I know, hair- and thin-spaces have no standardized size.

In Publisher, using Arial, I compared the width of an "m" with 4 1/4 spaces and 8 hair spaces, and I see the following:

image.png.15e4a3e0dff0ed7c15dde74977aeaa84.png

 

So, 1/4 spaces (in Arial, in Publisher) are not 1/4 em in width, but a bit wider. And 8 hair spaces are a bit less than an em in width. But how it looks to you, as the typesetter, should be what's important, not exact measurements.

 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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Thin and Hair spaces are not defined per se, Hair is thinner than Thin which is somewhere between 5 and 6 to the EM, Hair is thinner than that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_character for perusal. Mostly just remember than EM is the width equal to the height of the font (not the Leading, the actual stated size of the font). EN is half that and if there is not a number in the name it is probably just a description.

1495300687_ScreenShot2020-03-31at10_03_19AM.png.4d82a73607af96a2b7b31bbb6818ddfb.png

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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Thanks, Bruce. I never remember that em is height, and I don't know why I didn't think to compare with an em-space. Duh!

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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Yeah, thank you both for explaining. Sometimes it's a bit complicated to communicate with other layouters who don't know Affinity Publisher and still swear by InDesign. The eye trained by Friedrich Forssman and Ralf de Jong is decisive for one's own practice in any case. Thank you again and stay healthy in these apocalyptic times!

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