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

[DJP]

I think I understand all the information in the posts above. My issue is really more a general book design question then one specific to Affinity Publisher, but I’ve searched the web and haven’t found a good answer; so I will ask here.

 

I am working on a textbook that has a glossary at the end, set in two columns. Many of the definitions take only one line, while some take two and a few require three. I’ve set up the leading and line spacing so that many pages come out properly at the bottom. However, if a two line-definition comes at the bottom of a column, the whole paragraph (two lines) moves to the top of the next column since I have widow and orphan control turned on. The same thing happens with a three-line definition. 
 

I could tell Publisher to vertically justify the text, but I don’t like the extra white space introduced in one column and not the one next to it. I don’t like leaving, in effect, a blank line at the bottom of one column. I could turn off widow and orphan control; again not a good solution, but perhaps the least offensive one. I think this is particularly true when a three-line definition is involved, since this results in only one (not two) single-line elements. Which of these do you think is the way to go? Or is there another option that I haven’t considered?  The glossary is somewhat different than the body of the book. Readers will be focusing on the latter to understand and remember it.  They will turn to the glossary when they need help with a specific word or concept, but won’t focus on it the same way. So perhaps a few widows and orphans are acceptable here.

[walt.farrell]

8 hours ago, DJP said:

However, if a two line-definition comes at the bottom of a column, the whole paragraph (two lines) moves to the top of the next column since I have widow and orphan control turned on. The same thing happens with a three-line definition. 

I would turn off Widows and Orphans. Or perhaps, Balance Text in Columns would help?

[thomaso]

9 hours ago, DJP said:

I am working on a textbook that has a glossary at the end, set in two columns.

I could tell Publisher to vertically justify the text, but I don’t like the extra white space introduced in one column and not the one next to it.

I could turn off widow and orphan control;

It sounds like a matter of taste AND is influenced by some more aspects:  Number of characters per line | horizontal alignment | varying fonts, weights, sizes | indent(s) | leading | space before/after | number of lines per page | margins. Thus recommendations might be more reliable if you post spread screenshots (or PDF) of your considered variants, especially since you ask for possible, individual deviation from known* do's and don'ts.

*which possibly don't answer your question as principle, absolute rules, e.g. here or there.

 

[DJP]

Thanks to you both.  I have used Balance Columns but only on the last page of a two-column section.  I'll experiment and see what happens (if anything) when applied to a page other than the last.

I am reasonably familiar with the usual considerations of font size, line spacing, line length, etc.  I did the math carefully and pages work well as long as the paragraph at the bottom of a column requires only one line.  See the attached screen shot.  The left-hand page is fine, while the right-hand one is the worst in the book, since the entry that should come at the lower right requires three lines. Text is 10/12.  The book is 6 x 9 inches.  Sample printouts look good to my eyes, except for the occasional issue at the bottom of columns.

 

23 hours ago, DJP said:

 

 

[DJP]

Followup: after posting that screen shot, I noticed that there were 24 pt of space above the 'Q' heading, not 12 pt as the style calls for.  (That was probably a result of changes made by the authors; they kept adding to and removing words from the glossary as a result of changes they made in the body of the book.  I have now put my foot down about this issue.😖)  Fixing the spacing above made this spread come out OK, but I do still have a few with one blank line at a column bottom. 

[thomaso]

15 hours ago, DJP said:

See the attached screen shot.  The left-hand page is fine, while the right-hand one is the worst in the book, since the entry that should come at the lower right requires three lines.

Actually, if you wouldn't have asked I would just turn p. 127 without issues, without the idea of a disturbing blank space or a possibly missing text. If I understand right the screenshot doesn't show alternatives but just two different samples of same settings, right? Regarding p. 127, "requiro…"  this solution appears to me more useful than a possible alternative with a widow / orphan issue. The blank gap doesn't disturb me because personally I rather focus on readability for such content. So far from my designer's view.

From a readers view it feels more complex (but not necessarily more important): To me the last line is less relevant than the paragraphs (the eyes have to read across the entire page). On p. 217 the frequent last word "to" appears like a 'contextual widow' to me more disturbing than a typographical widow / orphan would do on an occasional page. (is a line break before a single "to" an option?) – If I literally 'hunt' for issues: Another irritation occurs to my eyes when searching a certain keyword, caused by the lengths of bold text per line (for conjugation / declination), sometimes even more than 1 line. Possibly I would prefer the first word only in bold as a clear visual emphasis … or/and a larger visual difference between the languages. (is serif & non-serif an option? or additional separator chars for conjugation & declination?) – And I would except the gender letters in italics like the word types.

[DJP]

You make an interesting point about the blank lines at the bottom of p. 127 not being distracting because of the page turn.  What do you think about the ones that come at the bottom of a column where a page turn is not involved? There are many more of these than there are that come at a page turn.  Throughout the book (except on some glossary pages) text ends at the bottom of the text block, as it should.  So I wish there were a better solution.

The authors and I had long discussions about the typography of the glossary.  No italics for gender (I did suggest that).  All Latin words, not just lemmata, are in semibold (full bold would create a very black appearance).  I don't think sans-serif for the Latin words is a good option.  Throughout the book, we use sans-serif to distinguish introductory sections and comprehension questions written by modern authors from the ancient texts.

I also noticed that 'to' at the ends of lines does not always look good.  I did put manual line breaks before the worst offenders; maybe I should add some more.

[thomaso]

Sorry, I don't understand your question. If an article ends on a page without the need to turn the page it is of course no problem, compared to a situation where an article only starts at the bottom (for instance with "latin, latin, latin, f") and needs to turn the page to read the rest of the article ("english, english"). With other words: to me it is more important to keep all words of one article together, avoiding the need to make the eye jump to the next column, page or spread – while a little blank space at the bottom doesn't disturb much.

With two font styles I had rather non-serif for English in mind because Latin as bold/semibold occurs darker anyway and thus the English text may appear lighter without serifs and make the switch more obvious (without the need to use a fully different font design).

The conscious decision for the gender letters set in the style of English appears in particular odd to me because English doesn't use gender for most nouns (different to German for instance). So the gender is more a Latin rather than an English property, while the italic terms (adv, conj,) may match both languages.

[lacerto]

1 hour ago, DJP said:

So I wish there were a better solution.

These kinds of problems often require manual work and some "cheating".

We have done lots of books and basically always aim at "full columns" for flown (continuing) text so I get your point, while I also agree that these things can be a matter of personal preference and taste -- sometimes they can also be kinds of house rules, and then you just need to show your professionalism and try to achieve what is asked.

Often problematic layouts require adjustments made to preceding pages and can be time consuming before a satisfactory result is achieved, but when working with ragged text alignment (as in your glossary example), you can often get columns evened out by forcing extra line breaks without visual distortion (it does not matter even if you occasionally have clearly shorter lines). A common cheat is also widening or narrowing columns (just make sure to keep the alignment with header and footer elements, and if necessary, change their positions spread-wise -- this can of course be easily seen when browsing pages in a PDF viewer, but this works just fine in a printed product. It is also perfectly fine (IMO) to make exceptions and add extra space before headings (like glossary capitals).

I would also clean those ending "to"s -- not necessarily each and every instance, but especially when something like this repeats, it becomes a disturbing pattern. In a glossary context I would probably always tie "to" to the following verb -- splitting a clear infinitive definition seems just "wrong".