How to decrease subhead leading without getting off of the copy text leading?

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
September 4, 2022
2 replies
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My subheads would require a shorter leading, but then I would loose alignment to the baseline grid (of the copy text).

What are the best practices for this?

How to

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Correct answer Chris P. Bacon

Increasing the font size solved it for me, it gives the appearance of smaller leading to the subhed, and in the end the appearance is what matters.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

My subheads would require a shorter leading, but then I would loose alignment to the baseline grid (of the copy text).

What are the best practices for this?

By @Chris P. Bacon

Going back to the original question...

You can't have it both ways--either align to the grid to cross-align the text for take the subhead off the grid to lessen the leading. If you try the latter choice, you could try a half-line paragraph space (half leading) above and below. Depending on the layout, leading, and number of lines, that would bring the body text back into alignment without major gaps.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

rob day

Community Expert

try a half-line paragraph space (half leading) above and below.

Hi David, Can you show an example of that working?

Here all of the Leading and Spaces are set to 14pt and the Baselines align even though Align to Basline Grid is off:

If I set the Space Above on the heads to 7pt the baselines are misaligned:

I can turn on Align to Baseline Grid and the baselines align again, but now the head’s actual space above is back to 14pt even though the Paragraph Panel has it set to 7pt:

Chris P. BaconAuthorCorrect answer

Inspiring

Increasing the font size solved it for me, it gives the appearance of smaller leading to the subhed, and in the end the appearance is what matters.

Chris P. BaconAuthor

Inspiring

Ah, I forgot about that. I should be able to decrease leading by increasing font size, when aligned to the baseline grid.

rob day

Community Expert

I should be able to decrease leading by increasing font size

Hi @Chris P. Bacon

Changing the font size would have no affect on the leading—leading is the distance from the line’s baseline to the baseline of the line above—changing the font size doesn’t change the baseline. See this thread for leading and space above/below measurements:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/paragraph-space-before-not-consistent/td-p/9932155#10444856

Here all the text is aligning to the baseline grid (even though I have Align to Baseline Grid turned off) because all of the leadings and spacings are multiples of the same number.