Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

Setting up Text boxes in AD V1


Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, jackamus said:

Its only a paragraph attribute because AD made it so.

Really?

From late 1980s layout applications to this day made by every company I've dealt with, it is a paragraph property.

Including Serif's PagePlus.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, MikeW said:

From late 1980s layout applications to this day made by every company I've dealt with, it is a paragraph property.

I agree that it is a Paragraph Property. It is.

Having said that I do wonder why when I go to set up a Paragraph Style in Designer or Publisher I need to switch from/to the Font Page and the Spacing Page. I wish the Leading was on both and linked. I seems like a simple thing to me.

909533053_ScreenShot2023-01-12at11_54_03AM.png.5fb5e2b34325397cf149583dd83eea69.png  1316850302_ScreenShot2023-01-12at11_54_19AM.png.e5851b9e4423077de38b7d28c3b248c9.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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

37 minutes ago, jackamus said:

I will concede that being able to manipulate type in all manner of ways as would a graphic designer is much easier now and can be visualised and changed very easily. I consider that to be a technological plus!. However there is a great deal of difference to this and basic typesetting. Maybe what I am suggesting is a basic typesetting feature and an advanced feature.

There already are basic typesetting features built into these apps. That's why there are defaults & automatic settings. You seem to be having a hard time understanding how they work, which results in your having to do more work than is necessary to use them.

So for example, as has been mentioned do not change leading override unless for some reason you need something other than the automatically set basic value that tracks the Leading set in the Paragraph panel. If you need all the text to have a particular leading so you can easily determine how many lines of text will fit on a page, just set it in the Paragraph panel & do not change the override, vertical scale, or anything else in the Character panel that would affect that.

50 minutes ago, jackamus said:

With respect to all you younger designers what I think has happened is that typography has been de-skilled like so many others artisan skills due to technological advances and I don't think that has added anything to man's abilities.

What has happened is that technological advances in DTP have opened up a huge range of typesetting possibilities that were either not practical or impossible using old fashioned manual typesetting methods & printing houses. Consider for instance how many different typefaces can be used in DTP without having to invest in any physical typefaces or leading. We can use script fonts that are for all practical purposes indistinguishable from hand written text, something no old-time print house could duplicate.

So far from 'de-skilling' anything, it simply has increased the possibilities for those willing to learn the skills needed to use them.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, jackamus said:

What has happened is a system that used to work very well indeed has been made more complicated

Odd cherry-picking, as technology it has not worked very well for the increased needs. The change in its use is a matter of technical development. Not only comparing this two technologies but also ignoring the various steps in between like typewriter, 'typeball'-typewriter, photo-typeset and digital but non-WYSIWYG typeset that each of them also influenced the development, use, understanding and requirements for line spacing appears very useless to me if I want to learn or understand how DTP is or should be used nowadays. The comparison might be nice to have but doesn't help here.
Comparing two technologies with an extreme time gap therefore seems to me like comparing a specific aspect of two different mobility technologies, e.g. the conditions for the ground when moving on foot, by horse, by car or on the plain an then wondering: "Why do we need roads nowadays, especially when asphalt makes mobility complex?"

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

basic typesetting features built into these apps. That's why there are defaults & automatic settings.

No, not the basic features are the reason for text style defaults but the digital WYSIWYG technology which simply requires defined style properties to display text at all.  Even [No Style] respectively defining a new text style – even without a displayed text – needs property values to start with. Without any font face, size, colour etc. text can not be displayed on screen.

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

If you need all the text to have a particular leading so you can easily determine how many lines of text will fit on a page, just set it in the Paragraph panel

Whereas in DTP there are more possibilities to achieve the goal of a certain number of text lines in a certain font size with a certain total paragraph height: One is the feature "Justify Vertically" another is the feature "Baseline Grid". Both profit from a semi-automatic support and both don't need a special setting for paragraph or character leading but rather may override both within a certain value range.
But also both make the possible workflows more complex – while their use is never required to achieve a certain design but is just an option to achieve it easier.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, thomaso said:

No, not the basic features are the reason for text style defaults but the digital WYSIWYG technology which simply requires defined style properties to display text at all. 

If that is not a basic feature of this technology then what is?

14 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Whereas in DTP there are more possibilities to achieve the goal of a certain number of text lines in a certain font size with a certain total paragraph height: One is the feature "Justify Vertically" another is the feature "Baseline Grid".

I think what the OP wants is a simple way to know in advance how many lines of text will fit on a page before anything is typed for any arbitrary font of a given point size. So it isn't just about paragraph height or leading or vertical justification. It means knowing in advance how many paragraphs of text there will be, how much space there will be between paragraphs, how many fonts that text might include, & even how much of the page's width & height will be allocated to that text.

So it isn't something that can have a simple answer that works for everything.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, R C-R said:

If that is not a basic feature of this technology then what is?

If one understands Defaults as a basic feature, then this defaults cannot be the reason for the defaults at the same time.

However, an alternative app default when creating a new text frame could be no style property at all but only empty fields instead (and thus not displaying any text unless the properties got set). But this No-Defaults appear terrible useless and cumbersome, though it might satisfy the OP by not using any specific, possibly unwanted formatting.

19 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I think what the OP wants is a simple way to know in advance how many lines of text will fit on a page before anything is typed

In my understanding it can be done with Baseline Grid as a calculation of page height, margins, total text height in combination with either the wanted number of lines or wanted font size (or line spacing). For instance …

… to calculate the number of lines for text area height 20 cm and desired font size 12 pt:
20 cm = 567 pt –> 576 pt / 12 pt = 47.3 –> 47 lines

… to calculate the line spacing (= grid spacing) for 20 cm text area height and desired 25 lines
20 cm / 25 lines –> grid spacing 12.7 pt

905102303_baselinegridcalculate1.jpg.785e27866988eb4c932aada25f7381c1.jpg–> 2001672286_baselinegridcalculate2.jpg.d44438034038d81b2025dd105e6106d2.jpg

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, thomaso said:

If one understands Defaults as a basic feature, then this defaults cannot be the reason for the defaults at the same time.

A default is simply a preset option. The reason it exists is to create a basic standardized & expected behavior. 

19 minutes ago, thomaso said:

In my understanding it can be done with Baseline Grid as a calculation of page height, margins, total text height in combination with either the wanted number of lines or wanted font size (or line spacing). For instance …

It also needs to take into account how the text will be broken up into paragraphs, the inter-paragraph spacing, the width & height of the page devoted to that text, & so on. After all, it would be quite unusual for the entire page to be covered edge to edge with text.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, R C-R said:

It also needs to take into account how the text will be broken up into paragraphs, the inter-paragraph spacing, the width & height of the page devoted to that text, & so on. After all, it would be quite unusual for the entire page to be covered edge to edge with text.

"It"? – What you mention as additional needs is not really related with the OP's issue or question of line spacing and its way of being set. Any calculation in horizontal direction gets – in my experience – just rather estimated by an average number of chars per line. For a perfect, failure-free calculation it would need the final layout respectively the numbers you mentioned (which will not be known before the final layout).

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Any calculation in horizontal direction gets – in my experience – just rather estimated by an average number of chars per line. For a perfect, failure-free calculation it would need the final layout respectively the numbers you mentioned (which will not be known before the final layout).

And that is what I believe the OP is hoping for -- an exact method for calculating the number of lines that will fit on a page, not just an estimate.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, jackamus said:

Its only a paragraph attribute because AD made it so.

And the tail wags the dog. ;) 

No, it only became a character attribute (for some) because Adobe decided so.
Here a relevant quote from someone who definitely knows and understands what he's talking about:
creativepro.com/leading-character-attribute-believer/#comments/1378106

Back in the day, the first thing to change from the defaults whenever I had to reset corrupt InDesign preferences (oh, often!) was "Preferences > Type > Apply Leading To Entire Paragraph". (Probably just my "bad habit" after 15 years with Aldus PageMaker and QuarkXPress…)

So thank you, Serif, for bringing sanity back to leading! :D 

5 hours ago, jackamus said:

With respect to all you younger designers what I think has happened is that typography has been de-skilled like so many others artisan skills due to technological advances and I don't think that has added anything to man's abilities.

I tend to agree with that. Having attended the design school shortly before DTP became a thing, we've still learned everything the "old school", by hand, and by eye.
Making digital typography look good still requires a lot of manual work. (Even though Adobe's optical kerning was really a big help. Hey, Serif, do you copy? Over!)

5 hours ago, jackamus said:

its difficult to teach and old dog new tricks even if it does do the same job.

My respect that you're even trying! :) 
An old buddy of mine, 20 years older and also a former graphic designer, he gave up on DTP – and then doing design work in general – when he was around 50-something. He just couldn't grasp it. It took him literally hours to typeset something he would have formerly finished with Letraset in 20 minutes. That was around the time when I switched from QXP4 to InDesign 2 and thought I could "outsource" some of my jobs to him. It didn't work…

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

And that is what I believe the OP is hoping for -- an exact method for calculating the number of lines that will fit on a page, not just an estimate.

This, the number of lines per page, does not require the horizontal data you added in your last post and is independent of the chars per line. If the font face is known then also the height can get calculated exactly, if its unknown then a desired value can be used and respected for a later font face decision. I don't see why the Affinity way of setting the line spacing or the difference between paragraph and character style would be an issue for such calculations.

Nevertheless, I see the disadvantage of digital fonts in their flexible, non-standard height in relation to their applied size, so that 12 pt can result in different heights (and thus different 100% line spacing). But since this is defined in the font files, the DTP application using the font files can hardly avoid this.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

With respect to all you younger designers what I think has happened is that typography has been de-skilled like so many others artisan skills due to technological advances and I don't think that has added anything to man's abilities.

1 hour ago, loukash said:

... I tend to agree with that. Having attended the design school shortly before DTP became a thing, we've still learned everything the "old school", by hand, and by eye. ...

I'm pretty certain scribes felt the same way once the printing press was a thing. Democratization in once-skilled crafts have always displaced the craftsman. However, at least in this field, the few were replaced by the many. And so a boom was created that spread to other needed industries and support services. More paper, more print devices, more ... it's a long list of jobs that were created in many industries to support this little thing called DTP.

One thing I've always liked about layout work and the needed application support is the ability to tweak a design and get approval, sometimes in minutes, instead of having changes couriered to a company and wait, sometimes days, for approvals or more requested changes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, MikeW said:

One thing I've always liked about layout work and the needed application support is the ability to tweak a design and get approval, sometimes in minutes, instead of having changes couriered to a company and wait, sometimes days, for approvals or more requested changes.

Whereby the advantage of speed also became a disadvantage due to increased demands. Before DTP, a layout required more different individual steps and physical materials (paper, glue, repro camera, film, etc.) and thus the speed of work was different … and more expensive. It is difficult to judge whether its technical development made graphic design & text generation fundamentally more efficient, even if it became obviously more effective due to the higher output.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, thomaso said:

... It is difficult to judge whether its technical development made graphic design & text generation fundamentally more efficient...

I think that depends on the definition of efficient.

Time pressure has been and still is an issue, whether using mechanicals (the physical parts) or computers. I know I can set a book faster--and as good/better--than mechanical type systems. To me, that is more efficient. The main problem I saw in the late 1980s through the 1990s when technology was quickly being adopted was the undervaluing of the people doing the work on computers. But these dtp operators were largely doing the undervaluing to themselves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

This, the number of lines per page, does not require the horizontal data you added in your last post and is independent of the chars per line.

The number of lines of text on a page depends in part on the number of paragraphs in the text, the spacing between paragraphs (which of course may be different from the leading in each paragraph), how much the beginning of each paragraph is indented, & how much of the page width is filled with the text.

So for example, just editing the text to break it up into more or fewer paragraphs will change the number of lines that fit on the page, as will any page space set aside for margins or for non-text graphic elements that are to be included on the page.

These things & much more are very easy to vary in DTP apps, & often used to both good & bad effect.

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

Nevertheless, I see the disadvantage of digital fonts in their flexible, non-standard height in relation to their applied size, so that 12 pt can result in different heights (and thus different 100% line spacing). But since this is defined in the font files, the DTP application using the font files can hardly avoid this.

What do you mean? You can use any line spacing you want in DTP apps. You are not limited to whatever is defined as a default in a font.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Of course, every single task can be done more efficiently today – I meant rather from a more distant view. For instance with printed matter I doubt the increased output made the society more wise or whatever, though it surely generated more economical growth at certain spots. I doubt the technical ability for everybody to create a greeting card on a PC improved the quality of relationships, or the higher screen or image resolution results in 'better' design or photos, although they may look sharper, more real or impressing by effects that we didn't know and haven't seen before …

The options that make "good" design easier have also increased the chances of "bad" results, while the total amount of tools and media available does not necessarily make it easier to find what I am looking for or to achieve what I want. We don't even have to know what we want. If doing and getting gets easier, both try and error increases.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, thomaso said:

For instance with printed matter I doubt the increased output made the society more wise or whatever, though it surely generated more economical growth at certain spots.

Modern printed matter may include other elements besides text, like graphs or technical illustrations that are a considerable aid to visualizing things that are hard to describe with words alone. I don't know if you would classify that as wisdom or whatever but I doubt society would be as advanced as it is today without it.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, R C-R said:

What do you mean? You can use any line spacing you want in DTP apps. You are not limited to whatever is defined as a default in a font.

@jackamus explained this before. In lead type the font size was physically defined and limited and a certain size was the same for various fonts – while digital fonts may differ in their height even if set to a same size. I understood this fact as the initiating issue of this thread because it makes such calculations more complex and depending on certain font faces.

And @walt.farrell pointed out that a leading of 120% does not necessarily result in identical line spacing if the font face gets changed.

However, in total DTP is of course a lot less complex if we consider all aspects and possible workflows, especially concerning text style parameters which can get changed with a few clicks only – whereas lead typesetting required for instance an additional physical piece at each single line to increase the line spacing … and did not know paragraph styles and automatism like space after, first line intend etc.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Modern printed matter may include other elements besides text, like graphs or technical illustrations that are a considerable aid to visualizing things that are hard to describe with words alone. I don't know if you would classify that as wisdom or whatever but I doubt society would be as advanced as it is today without it.

I am not sure if the massively increased total number of images and illustrations nowadays in fact has an absolutely essential part on technological development … or whether most of them is rather just entertainment or leads to confusion which requires / causes more communication … with more images.

If you consider that centuries ago an illustration was manually cut in wood, then metal to create a printable item or, before, was manually drawn with ink for reproduction and that these methods were successfully used by generations for documentations, news, instructions and technical or medical development and did cause mental and technical advance although of their time consuming workflows then it may seem also possible that this development could have been continued without DTP and its increased media output … and might "just" have run slower.

Of course, it is difficult to verify or falsify that certain stages of development might not have been really necessary to reach a next step. For example, was the fax machine a necessary step to modem and e-mail? Or was the brief period of the mini-disc recorder imperative for the development of the rewritable CD and optical disks in turn required to develop MP3, ACC, USB stick and SSD? Not only, but especially the last two centuries seems to be rich in developments that were not necessary for further progress – but sure they demanded resources. Strangely enough, electric cars were used for about 100 years before the combustion engine was invented ... and today we lack the development of batteries or other electricity memories … – What if Columbus had landed in India as originally planned? Would Affinity then be less, same or more developed than it is today?

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, jackamus said:

Because it means unnecessary undoing what's been selected by default.

What "unnecessary undoing" – there is no extra work or more steps to do!  If you want to set the leading yourself what does it matter what setting you are changing it from? It might as well be a popular default as anything else. It does not matter what the default is if you are going to set the leading yourself anyway! 🙄

Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz :  32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 10 Home
Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, thomaso said:

@jackamus explained this before. In lead type the font size was physically defined and limited and a certain size was the same for various fonts – while digital fonts may differ in their height even if set to a same size. I understood this fact as the initiating issue of this thread because it makes such calculations more complex and depending on certain font faces.

I thought that basically the initiating issue was @jackamus did not understand the difference between leading & leading override; & thus his comments about things being needlessly complicated because leading was set in two different places.

Regardless, i still think that the calculations cannot be done accurately without knowing how much of the page is devoted to text since it rarely extends edge to edge, where paragraph breaks will occur since that starts a new line which may leave white space on the page that would otherwise be filled with text, & so on. Of course, if the printer gets only the final draft of the text from its author, all that is known in advance, but with DTP the author & printer may be one & the same and/or several drafts may be involved before the final version is printed.

So yes, it can be considerably more complex, but it does not have to be an issue once one understands how it all fits together.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/13/2023 at 3:18 AM, loukash said:

No, it only became a character attribute (for some) because Adobe decided so.

I am not so sure about this.

It is much about compatibility and "standards". And that is the sole reason Affinity apps are "bringing sanity" into this thingamabob. Serif is determined to support IDML, therefore they are married to Adobe "insanities", which in part are no doubt results of needing to support exact line spacing of Word, which are to some extent necessitated by ability to support inline math expressions, and who knows what age-old import needs. It is called culture, support of diversity -- not easily explained and rationalized in any field. 

UPDATE: 

To be more accurate: I think that the Adobe style default line spacing allowing character based overrides comes partly from the Word-kind of “At least” line spacing that allows single exceptional line spacing within a paragraph (while the other line spacing options force common line spacing throughout the paragraph). In InDesign this feature is additionally improved so that it is possible to use line spacing overrides so that not only is a single line allowed to be larger than line spacing of the whole paragraph (like in Word), but that it is also allowed to be smaller than that of the whole paragraph – provided that all characters within a line use the same exceptional line spacing (which Is not supported in Word). This feature is useful e.g. in headings.

Affinity apps support the same practice, so in this sense they are not putting any sense at all to “Adobe insanity”, but simply just follow it (to support IDML), and accordingly might confuse users expecting forced paragraph based line spacing. I do not think that there is an option available in Affinity apps (contrary to InDesign) that allows supporting Word or QuarkXPress kind of forced, paragraph based line spacing. 

IMO the way InDesign implements line spacing makes a lot of sense since it leaves the full control to designer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had a query—a gripe even—about Leading override and I did what I’m supposed to do and searched first. Wow.

Jackamus my man!! I’m with you all the way. I understand your confusion. And I know exactly what you mean by ‘body size’. The size of the type body as it has been used for almost half a millennium. The depth, top-to-bottom, of the type character of any individual point size. The ascender-to-descender measurement, plus a notional allowance to prevent ascenders/descenders touching when the type is set solid. Solid = type set with no leading. Sometimes, for convenience, type would be cast with, for example, 12pt matrices (12pt Helvetica for example) but the 12pt mould would be replaced with (say) the 14pt mould. The result being type that is 12pt but on a 14pt body, or 12/14pt. This would obviate the need for the compositor to ‘lead’ the type manually.

I’m ok with, say, 12pt solid (12pt type, no leading) being expressed as 12pt leading. I understand why that is done—it’s not my preference but I’ve become accustomed. But it’s not 12pt leading. Twelve point type with 12pt leading would be lines of 12pt type with a 12pt lead between each line (24pts baseline to baseline). I liked QuarkXpress because—maybe because it was one of the earlier DTP systems —they chose to follow custom and terminology as far as possible so’s not to alienate their potential users.

I'm completely baffled as to why I would want to ‘override’ the leading on a piece of typesetting. In the olden days, when we wanted, for example, a piece of typesetting to have 3pt leading instead of 2pt leading, we would take out the 2pt leads and replace them with 3pt leads. We called this changing the leading; we didn’t call it overriding the leading because that’s not what it was; it was changing the existing leading for a different value.

And putting the default value in square brackets in one palette and parenths in another just seems to be saying ’that’ll confuse the b***ers’. And like Jackamus I want to decide what leading I want not the fount designer, and definitely not the software designer.

I’m ok with the leading being in the Paragraph palette—it’s not the way I’d prefer it but I can cope. I would prefer that ‘Leading’ meant leading, not point size plus leading; and as Jackamus and others have said, for convenience 12pt type with 2pt leading would be written as 12/14pt. A typographer/typesetter would know immediately what that meant. In DTP terms then, I would select 12pt from the type size menu and 2pt from the leading menu. That’s the way I would prefer it but I don’t get my preference and I’ve adjusted to that.

I’m even ok with the standard point becoming 72 to the inch rather than it’s traditional value which if my failing memory serves was slightly less than 72 to the inch. And this refers to the point system in use in the UK; other point systems were available.

But I repeat, I don’t understand why I might want to override the leading rather than just to change it? I have to play around everytime and hope I get what I want, never being 100% sure that I have.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here I have a pair of Character Styles applied to some words. One style changes the font size, the other changes the font size and sets a Leading override. This sort of thing would have been damned near impossible* for me to hand set. I used to have to do this sort of thing.

1713189936_ScreenShot2023-01-18at7_35_47AM.png.020f6668ed43e38a0935eee354646867.png

* Not impossible, but very time consuming and therefore impractical. 

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, Washishu said:

I had a query—a gripe even—about Leading override and I did what I’m supposed to do and searched first. Wow.

Jackamus my man!! I’m with you all the way. I understand your confusion. And I know exactly what you mean by ‘body size’. The size of the type body as it has been used for almost half a millennium. The depth, top-to-bottom, of the type character of any individual point size. The ascender-to-descender measurement, plus a notional allowance to prevent ascenders/descenders touching when the type is set solid. Solid = type set with no leading. Sometimes, for convenience, type would be cast with, for example, 12pt matrices (12pt Helvetica for example) but the 12pt mould would be replaced with (say) the 14pt mould. The result being type that is 12pt but on a 14pt body, or 12/14pt. This would obviate the need for the compositor to ‘lead’ the type manually.

I’m ok with, say, 12pt solid (12pt type, no leading) being expressed as 12pt leading. I understand why that is done—it’s not my preference but I’ve become accustomed. But it’s not 12pt leading. Twelve point type with 12pt leading would be lines of 12pt type with a 12pt lead between each line (24pts baseline to baseline). I liked QuarkXpress because—maybe because it was one of the earlier DTP systems —they chose to follow custom and terminology as far as possible so’s not to alienate their potential users.

I'm completely baffled as to why I would want to ‘override’ the leading on a piece of typesetting. In the olden days, when we wanted, for example, a piece of typesetting to have 3pt leading instead of 2pt leading, we would take out the 2pt leads and replace them with 3pt leads. We called this changing the leading; we didn’t call it overriding the leading because that’s not what it was; it was changing the existing leading for a different value.

And putting the default value in square brackets in one palette and parenths in another just seems to be saying ’that’ll confuse the b***ers’. And like Jackamus I want to decide what leading I want not the fount designer, and definitely not the software designer.

I’m ok with the leading being in the Paragraph palette—it’s not the way I’d prefer it but I can cope. I would prefer that ‘Leading’ meant leading, not point size plus leading; and as Jackamus and others have said, for convenience 12pt type with 2pt leading would be written as 12/14pt. A typographer/typesetter would know immediately what that meant. In DTP terms then, I would select 12pt from the type size menu and 2pt from the leading menu. That’s the way I would prefer it but I don’t get my preference and I’ve adjusted to that.

I’m even ok with the standard point becoming 72 to the inch rather than it’s traditional value which if my failing memory serves was slightly less than 72 to the inch. And this refers to the point system in use in the UK; other point systems were available.

But I repeat, I don’t understand why I might want to override the leading rather than just to change it? I have to play around everytime and hope I get what I want, never being 100% sure that I have.

 

Thank you for your welcome support Washishu. You managed to say in your single post that I had dragged-out of me as people started to respond to my initial question about leading.

Regarding leading override I think Old Bruce covers it and I agree that it would have been difficult to do in the old days. Having said that its an awful way to do type! Its the job of the graphic designer to choose how to 'hang himself' and not the software designer! In order to accommodate this kind of poor graphic design, the software designer as made simple typography more complicated in order to do it. I think there is a case for having a 'Standard Tab' and an 'Advanced Tab' for those who want to trash typography. I believe that is a basic beauty in all things. I do not believe that 'beauty' can simply be standardized as being in the 'eye-of-the-beholder'! I don't think it is possible to give it a specification. I think that it transcends popular culture or fashion.

The great problem, as see it today, which applies to pretty much everything, is 'Dumbing-down' - catering for the lowest denominator. Thinking has been taken out of 'Thinking' and we are given huge amounts of every conceivable choice! There is far too much choice in the world and it gets people confused. I do not believe that ALL technological advancement is good for us as most of the time we spend much less time thinking for ourselves and when that happens we get turned into Zombies or 'sheeple' as some would say.

However its only us 'old timers' that can say that because we have had the experience.

 

If voting made any difference it wouldn't be allowed!

Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.

To be ignorant of world happenings is forgivable - to be willingly ignorant is unforgivable.

Truth does not need to be protected only lies do.

Mac OS Monterey 12.6.4

AD version 2.3.0

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.