Finer Points of Typography & Other Resources

April 8 2026, 0 Comments

HOW TO SET AUTO PAGE NUMBERING (IN DESIGN)
Add your running head/feet and page numbers on the Master Spread that your pages are based on (Probably A Master).

Once you have your typographic design done and in place on the L-hand and R-hand page, do the following:
– Select/highlight the page number on the L-hand page with your text cursor.
– In the top InDesgin menu, go to Type > Insert Special Character > Markers > Current Page Number
This will add a letter character that will automatically show the current page number on the page.
– Next go the the R-hand page, and select/highlight the page number and follow the same directions as below.
– Save your document

– Once you go back to your InDesign pages, each page will show the current page number


TYPOGRAPHIC REFINEMENT RESOURCES
+ Checklist on the “Finer Points” of Text Typography
Go through the checklist on the Handout PDF here >

+ Review all design and refine rags, look for and fix extra spaces, and other typographical errors. (See “Finer Points” handout below)

To create a good rag, pay attention to the shape that the ragged line endings make. A good rag goes in and out from line to line in small increments. A poor rag creates distracting shapes of white space, i.e. “curves” or “holes,” etc. The only way to get a nice rag is to adjust it by hand. In some cases you may need to (sparingly) hyphenate very long words that create large “holes.”

+ Spell check your Editorial!

+ Aligning Baselines in Multi-column Grid
In your book/publication, baselines across columns (on your multi-column grid) should align. To do this, you can use the Align to Baseline Grid function in InDesign if you want. Below is a link to describe how to do this.
Aligning To Baseline Grid >

+ Turn Off Automatic Hyphenation
“Select all” type within each paragraph/text box. Then in InDesign go to: Window menu > Type > Paragraph > Hyphenation. Then de-select “hyphenation” to turn IT off. Don’t Hyphenate Proper Nouns (capitalized words). This will also prevent capitalized words from being hyphenated. For more info, scroll down on this page and find “Set Automatic Hyphen Options for a Paragraph.”How to Control Hyphenation >

+ Paragraph Flow in Multi-Column Grid Design
If you have a paragraph that ends with only 1-2 lines fitting at the bottom of a column, move the entire paragraph to start in the next column over.

+ Indents
Only use indents if paragraphs are not already separated by line breaks.

+ Use curly quotes (“ ” ) instead of straight quotes. (Key command, option+shift+left bracket and option+left bracket).

+ “Hang” Punctuation
Hang punctuation that occurs at the end of lines slightly out in the margins. (See example 2 below). This includes quotation marks,  etc). To do this, follow the instructions below:
1. In InDesign, select the text box where you want to “hang” the punctuation using the arrow cursor
2. Go to top Menu > Type > Story
3. When the dialog box opens, put the size of the type you are working with in the box, and click the “checkbox” to apply the optimal margin alignment to your text box.

+ Letterspace all strings of All Caps – extra tracking to help balance-out all-caps text settings. See image below.

+ Dashes
There are three kinds of dashes: hyphens, en-dashes, and em-dashes. Use spaced en-dashes (–) rather than a hyphen (-) or the long (—) em-dash to set off phrases. Use the em-dash to introduce speakers in a narrative.

+ Widows and Orphans
Look for and Remove all “windows” and “orphans” in your typography. Refresher: widows & orphans >

+ Parts of a Book Diagram
Here is a PDF of the parts of a book for reference. Note that this is for a very traditional book (which is why it includes both a Title Page and Half Title Page), so use this as a reference as is applicable for the type of book or publication you are creating. Parts of a Book Diagram >

+ Title Page
Some smaller publications such as Magazines and Pamphlets may or may not have a Title Page; longer publications should.

+ Image Credits
All projects should include a page to give credit to any found imagery and content being used. Include the page number where image or content is used, title of image, author, and source where you found this image.

+ Bibliography – list of your research, content being used, etc. Set up as you would in an academic essay/paper. (If you are directly using found text content, you may also be able to include this, if a small number of citations, in your Colophon.

+ Colophon – usually the very last thing in a book.  A colophon is a traditional element in a book that provides details on printing, production, typography, and often other specifics about the book, its content, and authorship. Example of what a Colophon for a publication that is one of your capstone medium’s. Bracketed information is what you would fill-in. It could also include additional notes/information on printing or production, such as type of printing process used, etc. See post about the Colophon with example here >

TABLE OF CONTENTS INSPIRATION
Some Table of Contents Examples PDF

DIGITAL MOCKUP RESOURCES
free mockup zone> graphic pear > mockup tree > mockup world > pexels >

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