How to align top and bottom text on verso and recto?

[piotr4338]

I don't even have the words to describe what I'm asking -- hence I'm coming here instead of RTFM. I'm trying to make sure that all the text in a book is aligned across verso and recto on both the top and the bottom. Microsoft products do this this automatically so I don't see why Affinity Publisher wouldn't as well. I must just be missing something simple, but don't even know what to Google to figure this out... 

 

Any help would be hugely appreciated because I've been tearing my hair out.

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @piotr4338

Unless I have misunderstood your requirements, what I think you need to use is the Baseline Grid.
Type baseline grid into the search in the application Help to find out more.

If that's not what you want then more a more detailed description of the problem may be required.

[Komatös]

Maybe the OP mean the vertical justification?

If so, than you have to adjust the vertical alignment of each text frame.
The easiest way to do this is to use the Studio tab 'Text Frame' and select the option 'Justify Verticaly' under vertical position. The text frame you want to edit must be selected.

[GarryP]

8 minutes ago, Komatös said:

Maybe the OP mean the vertical justification?

Quite possibly.
I’m a little confused as to what they mean by “aligned...on both the top and the bottom” as it’s not clear, to me, exactly what they want.
A little more information from the OP should hopefully clear things up.

[piotr4338]

I think vertical justification is what I was looking for and I just clearly didn't think of that... (but obviously -- text justification extends across a page evenly, so logically there ought to be a vertical instantiation). 

But here's what I mean: in one image, the text within the blocks on both pages start and are equidistant from both top and bottom margins; in the other, there is a clear discrepancy where the text starts equidistant from the top margin, but ends unevenly. My aim is to make it such that the distance from the top margin to the start of the text / bottom margin to end of text is symmetrical between pages. Hopefully that helped clarify what I'm trying to figure out?

I think it's probably just vertical justification, but the concern is obviously line inter-spacing if expansion occurs -- e.g., when justifying text normally, the words are spread apart; with vertical justification, presumably lines would be spread apart which may lead to inconsistencies? 

[walt.farrell]

32 minutes ago, piotr4338 said:

I think it's probably just vertical justification, but the concern is obviously line inter-spacing if expansion occurs -- e.g., when justifying text normally, the words are spread apart; with vertical justification, presumably lines would be spread apart which may lead to inconsistencies? 

But obviously unless both pages contain the same number of lines of text, you can't have the same start and end positions and the same line spacing.

If the line spacing is important, you probably want Baseline Grid, not Vertical Justification.

[Old Bruce]

Your problem is that there will be pages where the number of lines of text on the Lefthand page is going to be greater than, or less than, the number of lines on the righthand page. This will be caused by the settings for widows and orphans, the settings for Keep Paragraph together, the setting for space before and after paragraphs, and many other things as well. 

Put simply; there are going to be occasions when the text won't line up.

Myself, I ignore it. I set my text to use Exact leading and ignore any Baseline grid. You may want to use the Baseline grid for your body text. But there will be occasions where the number of lines of text on the Lefthand page are not the same as the number of lines on the Righthand page.

[thomaso]

In your second example the deviation is caused by the value for "space after" (or "before"). Especially if this is not equal or an 'even' part of the value for leading, there is no chance (or just coincidence) that all text will be aligned at the bottom of the frames as desired.
 

21 hours ago, piotr4338 said:

Microsoft products do this this automatically

Then they either ignore your leading or space settings or use a baseline grid. You can achieve the same in Affinity with the according settings. For instance start with space between paragraphs = leading.

[Oufti]

14 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

I set my text to use Exact leading and ignore any Baseline grid. You may want to use the Baseline grid for your body text. But there will be occasions where the number of lines of text on the Lefthand page are not the same as the number of lines on the Righthand page.

An important thing to take into account for a book is probably the fact that the paper is not opaque, i.e. one sees lines from the verso through the paper when reading the recto, and vice-versa. It is easier if lines of text are well aligned, so white lines are not obscured by text on the verso. 

To achieve this, you mainly have two ways of doing:
If you use baseline alignment (at least for body text), it will be automated but you don't have as much control than with a carefully calculated exact leading. 

Anyway, you'll want to always fall back on a (virtual) reference grid. 

[piotr4338]

On 10/1/2023 at 7:16 PM, Oufti said:

If you use baseline alignment (at least for body text), it will be automated but you don't have as much control than with a carefully calculated exact leading. 

Anyway, you'll want to always fall back on a (virtual) reference grid.

I may be misunderstanding (all the above comments as well), but apart from carefully calculating the leading (is there a to aid in such calculations?), there isn't an automatic way of ensuring that there are the same number of lines on a page?

Or is that what Walt was talking about here:

On 10/1/2023 at 5:59 PM, walt.farrell said:

If the line spacing is important, you probably want Baseline Grid, not Vertical Justification.

I guess I'm just confused (likely from lack of sleep and many unrelated deadlines closing in) on what I actually should do in order to make it such that the text is aligned evenly and/or there are an equal number of lines per page. I'm sure there's something somewhere telling me what to do, but I'm not entirely sure where to look... 

Again, my apologies but I do really appreciate all the help.

[piotr4338]

On 10/1/2023 at 5:24 PM, piotr4338 said:

I think vertical justification is what I was looking for and I just clearly didn't think of that... (but obviously -- text justification extends across a page evenly, so logically there ought to be a vertical instantiation). 

But here's what I mean: in one image, the text within the blocks on both pages start and are equidistant from both top and bottom margins; in the other, there is a clear discrepancy where the text starts equidistant from the top margin, but ends unevenly. My aim is to make it such that the distance from the top margin to the start of the text / bottom margin to end of text is symmetrical between pages. Hopefully that helped clarify what I'm trying to figure out?

I think it's probably just vertical justification, but the concern is obviously line inter-spacing if expansion occurs -- e.g., when justifying text normally, the words are spread apart; with vertical justification, presumably lines would be spread apart which may lead to inconsistencies? 

I guess I'm further unsure why "Totalized planetary space. Photonic-Net" doesn't just automatically move to the next page. I suppose I could "shift-enter" it to the next page, but does everything need to be done manually then?

[walt.farrell]

You would need to show us the document, at least those pages, so we could examine the settings in general, for us to answer that question.

Probably it "doesn't move to the next page" because, with your current settings, there is room on the page it's on.

[piotr4338]

On 10/3/2023 at 6:47 AM, walt.farrell said:

You would need to show us the document, at least those pages, so we could examine the settings in general, for us to answer that question.

Probably it "doesn't move to the next page" because, with your current settings, there is room on the page it's on.

Apologies for the delay -- here's a part of a file (butchered a bit to get a few pages out). Is there other info that would help? This is just one doc, but I'm trying to figure out how to deal with the problem more generally.

sample.afpub

[anto]

1 hour ago, piotr4338 said:

Is there other info that would help?

I'd use baseline grid

If you want to have different styles in document, better is create different styles and then use them.

 

[piotr4338]

On 10/9/2023 at 1:00 AM, anto said:

I'd use baseline grid

 

If you want to have different styles in document, better is create different styles and then use them.

 

 

You, sir/ma'am/etc. are a scholar and a saint! I haven't yet played around with it, but based on the videos, it looks like this is exactly how to do it and thank you for actually making the videos. I'm not sure the reputation system works here, but I hope liking your post does something. You have my gratitude!

Hopefully I won't come back next week asking, "wait, I'm confused, how do I do X??"

[Komatös]

5 hours ago, piotr4338 said:

but I hope liking your post does something. You have my gratitude!

You are welcome! And next week we'll be here to clear up your confusion. 🤣

[piotr4338]

On 10/11/2023 at 3:02 AM, Komatös said:

You are welcome! And next week we'll be here to clear up your confusion. 🤣

Sure enough, confusion remains, haha!

So, I'm going to try to provide as detailed an account of what I'm trying to do (in this project) as I can. There are three texts in one book and so I figured I ought to use baseline grid for each large text frame (three in total, ignoring titles and epigraphs which, presumably, can be stand on their own and be formatted independently). In the current text I'm working with (relatively simple), I've created two different text styles: body text and block quotation. The goal is to have the body text be Garamond 12pt, auto hyphenation, 6pt after paragraph, 12pt lead, .25in first line indentation, last line left justified. The block quotations are Garamond 10pt, auto hyphenation, 6pt after paragraph, 10pt lead, .5in full indentation, last line left justified. (Hopefully you can see the styles in the file?) Ideally, all text aligns evenly at the bottom of the page without some pages being more full than others. Although this may not actually be possible.

I've then  manually bolded the headers and changed the paragraph before them to 8pt after paragraph. I've only completed to the end of "Mutate" in the file. As you'll see, there still are alignment issues and I'm not sure if the above is the right (or most efficient) way to do everything.

Shamefully admitting: all the other things I've printed, I've formatted in Microsoft Publisher which is, on the one hand, easier to use but, on the other, must less customizable. So I'm still getting the hang of the nuances of Affinity. I did RTFM and have spent a 4 hours on these 11 pages so I figured I might as well ask for help.

As with before, I appreciate any and all help (indeed, it'll only get more complex as I move back to the file attached before). Hopefully this is enough information and/or the file will help?

Thank you in advance!

Testing styles.afpub

[anto]

First of all, create and set up text frames on master pages.

Create text styles for all elements of your text.

If you create book for typography better use CMYK profile.

Look at video

 

 

testing styles 2.afpub

[thomaso]

5 hours ago, piotr4338 said:

The goal is to have the body text be Garamond 12pt, auto hyphenation, 6pt after paragraph, 12pt lead, (…)

(…) headers and changed the paragraph before them to 8pt after paragraph.

With these settings it can't work reliable to get common last lines in all frames. Just imagine (calculate) what happens with different situations. For example a few lines + a few space after …:

a.   12+12+12 + dto. (no space after)
b.   12+12+12+6
c.   12+12+12+6+8
etc.

This samples a.-c. don't have identical, common divisors (for a. it is 12 | for b. it is 6 | for c. …). This must lead to different last line positions, varying with the number of lines and the number of spaces after, [while two different space after ( 6 and 8 ) or another font size / leading make it more tricky].

Although your baseline grid of 6 pt can fix this in a certain way (by forcing the spaces after 6 and 8 to 12) it still causes differences/deviations, starting at the first space after. In the following paragraphs the lines on the left and the right page can meet again for a while and get separated again with a next space after, etc. …:

[Old Bruce]

19 hours ago, piotr4338 said:

So, I'm going to try to provide as detailed an account of what I'm trying to do (in this project) as I can. There are three texts in one book and so I figured I ought to use baseline grid for each large text frame (three in total, ignoring titles and epigraphs which, presumably, can be stand on their own and be formatted independently). In the current text I'm working with (relatively simple), I've created two different text styles: body text and block quotation. The goal is to have the body text be Garamond 12pt, auto hyphenation, 6pt after paragraph, 12pt lead, .25in first line indentation, last line left justified. The block quotations are Garamond 10pt, auto hyphenation, 6pt after paragraph, 10pt lead, .5in full indentation, last line left justified. (Hopefully you can see the styles in the file?) Ideally, all text aligns evenly at the bottom of the page without some pages being more full than others. Although this may not actually be possible.

The problem here is that you have two sets of leading, 12 and 10 points. You are going to have an entirely arbitrary number of lines with 10 point leading and another arbitrary number of lines at 12 point leading. Add into this the 6 points of space after each of the paragraphs and you have a set of rules which make it unlikely that your last lines will line up.

Consider two pages on the left there is a massive paragraph, think Faulkner or Joyce, on the right there is the end of that paragraph, 6points of white space and a second paragraph. You have a mismatch of 6 points, and that is with only the one style and leading of 12 points.

[piotr4338]

On 10/16/2023 at 6:06 PM, anto said:

First of all, create and set up text frames on master pages.

Create text styles for all elements of your text.

If you create book for typography better use CMYK profile.

Look at video

 

 

testing styles 2.afpub 36.07 kB · 1 download

As per above, a scholar and a gentleperson whom I tip my hat to in gratitude -- this is a wonderful video and helped a ton! I think (hope) I have it figured out. Still working with the following posts, but combined, I think I have a much clearer idea of what I'm doing. I may return with yet more confusion, but fingers crossed we're good! 

I really do appreciate how helpful you all have been, and @anto, your videos are a Godsend! (I was watching and doing my own voiceover, lol) The fun task will be working with the 200+ page, multi-essay book. The custom styles will be so helpful oh my goodness.

Hopefully just liking ya'll's posts gives you some boost in reputation, etc.!

We'll see if I return befuddled in a few weeks, haha

 

On 10/16/2023 at 9:51 PM, thomaso said:

With these settings it can't work reliable to get common last lines in all frames. Just imagine (calculate) what happens with different situations. For example a few lines + a few space after …:

a.   12+12+12 + dto. (no space after)
b.   12+12+12+6
c.   12+12+12+6+8
etc.

This samples a.-c. don't have identical, common divisors (for a. it is 12 | for b. it is 6 | for c. …). This must lead to different last line positions, varying with the number of lines and the number of spaces after, [while two different space after ( 6 and 8 ) or another font size / leading make it more tricky].

Although your baseline grid of 6 pt can fix this in a certain way (by forcing the spaces after 6 and 8 to 12) it still causes differences/deviations, starting at the first space after. In the following paragraphs the lines on the left and the right page can meet again for a while and get separated again with a next space after, etc. …:

 

On 10/17/2023 at 12:51 PM, Old Bruce said:

The problem here is that you have two sets of leading, 12 and 10 points. You are going to have an entirely arbitrary number of lines with 10 point leading and another arbitrary number of lines at 12 point leading. Add into this the 6 points of space after each of the paragraphs and you have a set of rules which make it unlikely that your last lines will line up.

Consider two pages on the left there is a massive paragraph, think Faulkner or Joyce, on the right there is the end of that paragraph, 6points of white space and a second paragraph. You have a mismatch of 6 points, and that is with only the one style and leading of 12 points.

 

[piotr4338]

On 10/17/2023 at 12:51 PM, Old Bruce said:

Consider two pages on the left there is a massive paragraph, think Faulkner or Joyce, on the right there is the end of that paragraph, 6points of white space and a second paragraph. You have a mismatch of 6 points, and that is with only the one style and leading of 12 points.

 

Returning again. So does this mean that it's theoretically impossible, without using baseline grid, to ensure that pages match up? I guess I'm not sure how baseline grid actually solves the issue you're describing. It seems like it does, but I don't follow how. 

On 10/16/2023 at 9:51 PM, thomaso said:

Just imagine (calculate) what happens with different situations. For example a few lines + a few space after …:

Can you explain to someone who is painfully bad at math how to possibly figure out a way to make things match up? 

Let's say I'm using two styles: 12pt font, 12pt leading, 6pt space after paragraph, and a block quotation of 10pt font, 10pt leading, 6 pt space after paragraph. You have 30 and 26 and 2 is a common divisor, so why wouldn't that work? Again, I am terrible at math. We're not gonna talk about that...

[thomaso]

8 hours ago, piotr4338 said:

it's theoretically impossible, without using baseline grid, to ensure that pages match up?

It is possible but requires on both pages of the spread a certain ratio of paragraphs (spaces after). (-> see below).

8 hours ago, piotr4338 said:

Let's say I'm using two styles: 12pt font, 12pt leading, 6pt space after

In your screenshot (named 'bgtest.png' which might mean 'baseline grid test') you have set a 'space after' of 6 but it appears you also have a baseline grid of 12 activated. The baseline grid overrides the 'space after' of 6 and thus the visually resulting space is 12, not 6, and thus the lines can match at the bottom.

That is why I said on 2nd Oct. "… there is no chance (or just coincidence) that all text will be aligned at the bottom of the frames as desired." In this case "coincidence" can also be influenced by yourself, for instance if you add or remove a paragraph break to influence the bottom lines. Since every paragraph (≠ line break) will cause an additional 'space after' one paragraph more or less can make the two pages of a spread match (but, of cause, does influence the text flow on all following pages).

Maybe it helps to visualize the problem with a practical example. The picture below might be sufficient to demonstrate the issue, the maths to the right is not required to understand what's happening there:

A parking space is divided into multiple slots of same size (~the 'leading'), one slot for each car. If a car occupies more space than one slot (demands a 'space after') the other cars will either have to park closer to each other (reduced 'leading') or 1/2 car would be left over:

However, this overlap at the bottom edge can be visually corrected if another car takes up additional space (= “space after”). Then the two "spaces after" ("paragraph breaks") ensure that no half car is left and no car overlaps ... while reducing the total number of parked cars in this way:

[Old Bruce]

8 hours ago, piotr4338 said:

Returning again. So does this mean that it's theoretically impossible, without using baseline grid, to ensure that pages match up? I guess I'm not sure how baseline grid actually solves the issue you're describing. It seems like it does, but I don't follow how. 

I can pretty much guarantee that you will have mismatched lines at the bottom of the page or in the middle of the page if you have a long enough text flow. Consider that you have everything set to be on a rigid, no exceptions, 12pt grid. Now you have to decide what to do about Widows and Orphans. It is conventional to not start or end a page's text with only one line of a paragraph be it the first or last line of a paragraph. Makes for a nicer looking page. You will have situations where the first line of the last paragraph would be on its own, should you bump it to the following page so as to keep with convention?

This sort of thing should be considered from the reader's point of view. Will the reader really notice a blank line every now and then? 

You could distribute the lines evenly but I can say that that sort of thing I notice and it drives me as a reader batty.

Accept the occasional empty line.

[piotr4338]

11 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Accept the occasional empty line.

As should be obvious, I'm a bit hyper-focused and obsessive so this is the real challenge! 

But for real, @thomaso and @Old Bruce, you two are godsends. Thank you both for the help and thomaso, thank you for the extremely detailed response (with pictures! great for my non-math brain! a bit embarrassing, but such is life) -- I think I see what's going on. I'm assuming, since baseline grid overrides the space after in the spacing section, the images either don't use baseline grid or each 'paragraph' (set of cars) is using a style with 6pt spacing built in? 

Regardless, thank you (all) again so much for all the help! Now I need to get a ruler to start measuring my books as I read them... Again, hopefully the likes help your reputation in some small way. 

Fingers crossed I don't return yet again (at least with the same question)...