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Klаus
Klаus
Inspiring
May 16, 2020
Answered

How to go about setting a »No hyphenation book«?

  • May 16, 2020
  • 4 replies
  • 2391 views

Hi there!

 

I am about to do the text setting of a 200+ pages book in which for a certain reason hyphenation is not allowed. It will feature quite normal page layout dimensions and justified text of may be 10 pt and everything – but again: no hyphenation.

 

I can think of two ways trying to minimize the bad optical consequences of this harsh constraint:

 

  • Kind of loosing the Justification settings

 

  • Picking a typeface, that first of all fits well under these circumstances especially

 

Anybody around here, with some in deep experiences with a task like this? What else would you suggest?

 

Thanks a lot!

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Klаus

The problem with the default justification, no hyphenation, and short measures, is the Min & Max Word Spacing. I can tighten those allowances, and compensate with Letter Spacing and Glyph Scaling. I can’t easily see the difference between 97% and 95% glyph scaling, or a 4% change in letterspacing, but the rivers created by 133% max word space are more than obvious.


My problem with this is that I kind of detest glyph scaling values other than 100 %. Even 99/100/101 gives me sleeping problems. So I have to stick with Word and Letter Spacing basically. And with selecting a suitable typeface for this task of course. I did quite some testing these days, and I found those four to be about the best ones:

 

Adobe Garamond Pro

Charter

Life

Quay

4 replies

rob day
Community Expert
rob dayCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 18, 2020

The typeface would have an affect, as well as the point size—in the end it’s the average number of characters per line that will determine whether there will be problems with justification. You certainly can improve how text will justify by changing the defaults.

 

With a very tight measure—4-6 words per line— you can see the problem with default Justification and no hyphenation on the left vs. a custom Justification on the right:

 

 

 

A 4" column with 12/14 text and no hyphenation:

 

 

Willi Adelberger
Community Expert
Willi AdelbergerCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 16, 2020

Work with Paragraph Styles!

 

In my experience, I had similiar tasks, I got the best results if I did some adjustments in the Justification section of the Paragraph Styles. Depending on the selected font and the selected lenght of the lines and paragraphs (the longer the better) I did not only allow the spaces between words, but also between the glyphs to have a range. In the last caste I allowed the space between the glyphs -4% 0% 5%.

Klаus
KlаusAuthor
Inspiring
May 16, 2020

Yep! Especially that Letter Spacing Minimum value of -4 or even -5 seems to do half of the trick. While pumping up the Maximum does not, for me.

Klаus
KlаusAuthor
Inspiring
May 16, 2020

By the way: Can I make InDesign’s preflight detect (and count) any of those famous »Yellow H&J Violations« within my document? I tried it, but in vain.

BobLevine
Community Expert
BobLevineCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 16, 2020

Bevi has given you good advice but justified text with no hyphenation will never yield a very good result. If you want to break rules like this, it's usually a good idea to tell us why.

    Klаus
    KlаusAuthor
    Inspiring
    May 16, 2020

    Yeah, no question about it. But in this case, it’s a matter of sacrifice one thing in order to achieve another thing (which my client needs). And I’m up to minimize the damage that sacrifice may cause 😉

     

    This includes selecting the »ideal« typeface(s) for this. In combination with some (yet to be elaborated) smart H&J settings, I believe that a result is possible, which is at least uhm, acceptable.

     

    I tried Bevi’s fonts as well as some others before. It’s interesting that under this crucial circumstances they all »behave« differently, and even more that good old Adobe Garamond Pro is among those doing quite well here.

    Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
    Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
    Legend
    May 16, 2020

    Designing the book with a longer line length.

    For example, a wide 1-column layout will have less need for hyphenation and justified white spaces than a 2- or 3-column layout.

    Also choose a font with a taller x-height, such as Noto Sans & Serif https://fonts.google.com/?query=Noto. Or Roberto https://fonts.google.com/?query=roboto 

     

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