Affinity Publisher - character count or line length adjustment?

[Squidlet]

I'm new to Affinity Publisher and am working through a course for graphic design and typography. I need to practice doing page layouts and have been told to adjust line length and character counts try try and make my blocks of text look more visually appealing, however I can't seem to find an option for any of these in the tools. Is it an option in Affinity Publisher?

 

Thanks :)

[GarryP]

It depends on what is meant by “adjust line length and character counts”.
If you have some set text then you can’t just add or remove random characters/words to make the text look nicer; the text/layout has to be properly adjusted, whether by changing what the says or changing various things (all very much dependant on what you have and what you can change).
What, specifically, does the course say? Is there a public link so we can read/view it?

[Squidlet]

Yes I should have been more specific sorry. By line length I was referring to the number of words on a line, a number that can be set to keep a little consistency, and character counts was similar, setting how many characters can appear on a line?

[GarryP]

You can use things like Kerning, Tracking, Word Spacing, and various other settings, but they need to be used carefully or things might look worse.
I would suggest that forcing a set number of characters/words per line isn’t a good way to make things look nice as that, for one example, doesn’t take things like ‘rivers’ into account.
Good typography is something that takes a lot of time to learn – I’m still learning myself, slowly – and the techniques have to be used where they are right to be used, rather than just using the same technique(s) everywhere as a ‘quick fix’.
If you can supply some sample text, tell us which font you are using (and at which size), tell us which justification type you need, and what the frame size is, then we might be able to come up with some examples of what can be achieved.

[Squidlet]

That would actually be really helpful, thank you Garry!  I tried to make it work with Justified text, but struggled to avoid the rivers you mentioned. So I have switched it to left aligned and have been working on the ragline a little bit. I'll just attach the document I've been working on, if that's easier.

The Font is Georgia, the size is 9pt and it was just a basic assignment to research the font and then use that body of text to create two paragraphs, with an appealing layout and a simple Header and sub header.

I have been trying to create a grid as well, I managed to make a "base grid" I think its called, but couldn't work out how to make "column's". I realize this one is simple and probably doesn't need a grid, but I'd love to be able to practice setting them up to make a layout over multiple pages.

I really appreciate any advice you could offer

Georgia assignment 2.afpub

[GarryP]

I’ve attached my version of your document.

The formatting has been done via:
* Justify Left;
* Optical Alignment – Font;
* Changed some “-”’s to en-dashes;
* Added a “-” between “non” and “confrontational”;
* Set Auto Hyphenation to ON;
* Set the Tracking of “Telegraph, Wall Street Journal and the Independent” to 14% instead of 15%.
* Set the Tracking of “from Times New Roman to Georgia in 2007. The Guardian,” to 11%.
* Set the Tracking of “Georgia has a high level of modulation – alternating thick and thin strokes,” to 5% (not ideal).
* Set the Tracking of “Georgia is a transitional serif, incorporating design elements from old serif” to 13%.
* Set the Tracking of “whilst being non-confrontational, nor intimidating. The serifs” to 3% (not ideal).

It's not perfect, and better jobs can surely be done, but it’s reasonably quick and probably good enough for most purposes.
The paragraphs are formatted via the “Formatted” Text Style with the Tracking changes made manually.

Georgia assignment 2-formatted.afpub

Edited May 16, 2020 by GarryP
Forgot about Auto Hyphenation.

[thomaso]

10 hours ago, Squidlet said:

I need to practice doing page layouts and have been told to adjust line length and character counts try try and make my blocks of text look more visually appealing, however I can't seem to find an option for any of these in the tools. Is it an option in Affinity Publisher?

Note that the number of characters per line will + shall vary because of different width of characters. So an equal number of chars per line only makes sense if you use a monospaced font. In those every char takes the same width and is designed accordingly. Compare:

      iii - mmm

iii - mmm

In case you shall train your eyes and awareness of differences per lines then the adjustments per line as shown by GarryP do make sense, since this way you may get a feeling for the results caused by different values, depending on various characters and numbers of words (> numbers of spaces), too. Also for this exercise it can be useful not to use hyphenation at all for more obvious experience of varying word lengths and words per line.

In case you shall find a proper way to use the software then another UI section might be more appealing: the Justification setting (> Paragraph Panel), which applies a range for various aspects of spaces per line for entire paragraphs. Its single setting may also depend on a paragraphs alignment or justification (left/right/center etc.). – Another useful option is the activation of Hyphenation, which automatically decides their need according to the text content and to you your preference, set in its section, too. It needs to get a language selected in the Characters Panel.

For a proper typesetting you should avoid a.) manually typed hyphenation and b.) manually typed line breaks, in particular those manually hard breaks (which also end a paragraph, different to soft breaks, which just start a new line).
The activation of "Special characters" (menu Text > Show... ) does support you by visualizing the invisible glyphs (spaces, breaks et al.).
 

[Squidlet]

Thank you so much for outlining every step you did Garry, this is extremely helpful! Whilst this course is extremely informative and I'm learning loads, it doesn't tell you how to translate "how to set tracking", because its not for a specific program. So I'm also learning how to use Publisher with online tutorials.

And thank you Thomaso for your real world application advice  

Alot of what I have been trying to do makes sense now.

[Alfred]

22 hours ago, GarryP said:

Added a “-” between “non” and “confrontational”

If I were editing this particular piece of text I would do away with the “non-“ altogether since a “nor [something]” phrase needs to be preceded by “neither [something]”, e.g.

Quote

neither confrontational nor intimidating

 

[GarryP]

Quite right.
I didn’t read it properly at first; I just tend to notice when people use “non” without the hyphen or, even worse, use something like “none confrontational”.

[thomaso]

23 hours ago, thomaso said:

you should avoid a.) manually typed hyphenation

Since it's going to be more precise, thanks Alfred, here another one:

In case you do not want the automatic hyphenation (which always applies to entire paragraphs or styles):

You can type a manual hyphenation. But instead using minus or dash ('-' / '–') ...

... you use menu Text > Insert ... to make even a manual hyphenation work properly and occur only if necessary: at the end of a line.

p.s.: Resolution is a 'solution' + 're', not a thing like 'res' 'olution', as in "res publica".
Which makes me wonder if there ever is a situation where "re-staurant" may be related to 'res' + 'taurine'

[Squidlet]

Thank you so much! This has all been extremely helpful for my project  I hope you guys don't mind answer my questions again in the future if you have the answers. Your explanations have be excellent.

 

[GarryP]

You’re welcome. Glad to be of assistance.
Please feel free to ask any (relevant) question you want.