Justification word settings

[stevewhit]

I know it's subjective and I have seen suggestions about making the text box bigger, but can anyone suggest for found a desired word space setting that does not give a wide gap between words? the three figs would suffice - I am currently on 90 - 100 -110, but I don't know if this is default? 

any help appreciated

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

If you're having a problem with wide gaps, a screenshot of your document, or a sample document, might be useful. But one common problem is using the wrong Justification settings, and choosing Justify All rather than Justify Last Line Left from the paragraph justification settings (Edit: if it's the last line with the wide spacing of words). Or, a related problem, using Line Breaks within a paragraph to force shorter lines, rather than Paragraph Breaks (Edit: if it's a line in the middle with wide word spacing).

[Old Bruce]

Welcome to the forums @stevewhit.

 I believe the defaults are like this. 80 100 133

[thomaso]

Also the font face matters (and its quality, too). The default should appear in the fields if you have no text frame selected. Additionally the sliders to the field values show fine vertical strokes that indicate the default. (note, the 3 fields influence each other in their max/min values).

[stevewhit]

thank you  - sorry for the late reply, i have been on holiday

[P_Bellefeuille]

[P_Bellefeuille]

TypographyForTheBetter.pdf

[stevewhit]

These settings are the best I have seen for bookwork especially the middle one. I always use auto-hyphenation - presume it's an age thing. Unfortunately might be a bit late for my current publication as paragraphs have run on to next pages but will keep for future reference. I do miss Adobe paragraph composer but those subscription rates- oh boy!

[P_Bellefeuille]

16 hours ago, stevewhit said:

These settings are the best I have seen for bookwork especially the middle one. I always use auto-hyphenation - presume it's an age thing. Unfortunately might be a bit late for my current publication as paragraphs have run on to next pages but will keep for future reference. I do miss Adobe paragraph composer but those subscription rates- oh boy!

I agree about what you're saying about Adobe. Sure, Adobe paragraph composer is a great tool. I disagree completely with Adobe about their subscription approach including the fact that it is very intrusive into the computers' system ressources. Like you said: “oh boy!

I was a professional graphic designer for a few decades. I started with QuarkXpress, I then switched to Adobe Suite in 2002 and I shut the door to Adobe in 2015 to adopt Affinity Serif software. Affinity publisher isn't that far away from Adode InDesign typographically speaking, pretty near in fact.

I still miss the variable glyph width where I was using -98, 100, and 102 values with flushed texts, right and left, this for the production of a 200-page book. I was using a dedicated paragraph style sheet to fix only the problematic areas, there was no need to used these -98, 100 and 102 values everywhere. The specific problems that may occur here and there are just asking for a specific solution, and that's where there variable glyph with were so handy to solve these problems.

I'm pretty sure that Serif team will eventually fill this gap about the variable glyph width, I hope so. This option should be implemented into the Justifications' palette. That said, as is, it is already pretty easy for the experienced graphic designer to produce some highly professional designs, the proofs are there everywhere now with million of users worldwide using Affinity Suite. By the way, there is no obligation to use flush texts right and left. I saw by the past many award winning graphic design concepts that were built with the paragraphs aligned to the left, but it is not applicable to all products.

Finally, I published the settings up here, because I updated lately my Affinity software to version 2. Even if I'm not anymore active as a professional graphic designer, I still love to experiment and evaluate the creative possibilities that Affinity is offering. Especially in the context of the update, I was looking to retrieve the best justification settings and I found this thread where where I wanted to contribute by documenting some of the best practices in the field of the graphic design.

I consider that what Serif did is an amazing job in many ways. Of course, there is a learning curve, but mostly everything is so well documented.

Overall, I am a big fan about Affinity suite, I'm having too much fun to explore many of its creative possibilities. 

Congrats to all the Serif team being a very strong alternative to Adobe. 

By the way, the parameters into the auto-hyphenation box that I showed in my previous post are not to be taken as a fixed rule, it may vary with the usage of some other languages like French or other. There is always some place to experiment. 

Edited August 23, 2023 by P_Bellefeuille

[jmwellborn]

Welcome to the forums @P_Bellefeuille !! Your in-depth knowledge and past experience will be a great asset in these forums as people learn to use the Affinity apps — particularly Publisher. InDesign may have been fine in its day, but for those of us who thoroughly despised the idea of being forced to “rent” our own work from Adobe, when that company changed to the subscription model, I am sure that Affinity was (and continues to be) a breath of elegance and fresh air. I don’t care if there are some things that Photo, or Designer, or Publisher “can’t do” exactly the way they did with Adobe’s stuff. They can do so much so smoothly, and there is almost always a way to accomplish the same thing by different means.

Most of all, the developers and support staff at Serif, are uniformly courteous and helpful in an old-fashioned way that has unfortunately widely disappeared in public interactions. The world would be a much nicer place with many more Serifs!!

[P_Bellefeuille]

You are welcome @jmwellborn 

Taking the time to learn the Affinity suite is really rewarding. Serif is very innovative in many ways and for the better.  Many things are also really familiar to me. I can do any creative works with it, I don't feel limited at all. Sure there are some learning curves when someone is coming with an Adobe backgroud, trying to figure out sometimes how to emulate some techniques, but I always found a workaround, so I don't feel limited at all. There isn't any way to look back and to return to the competitor.

I simply say to any newcomer: take the time to learn and explore in depth Affinity suite, then someone will be able to fully understand the great creative potential that Affinity suite offers. The way Affinity Publisher integrates itself with Affinity Photo and Designer is just unique and amazing, it leaves any competitor far behind. 

Again, Great job Serif Team! 😀