Aligning end of paragraphs across spreads

[jeremys45663268]

Hello!

I am urgently trying to use Paragraph Styles to ensure that the last lines on all facing spreads of a book align. 

I.E. if left spread ends 20 lines into the page, right spread will do the same.

I need to format a whole book like this so manual changes are not an option -- it mustbeaccomplished through style sheets!

Any advice? 🙂

J

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

This layout is entirely dependent on the content. If you have the content paginated at equal numbers of lines, it should be a straightforward manner of using page break to keep each block of text on its appropriate page. (I am envisioning something like poetry or text with a translation on a facing page, something done fairly often.)

If this is flowing text you want to arbitrarily match left and right... it's possible scripting can handle it, but nothing in the inherent typography/layout features will help much.

[jeremys45663268]

Thank you for your first stab at this! Here is a documenting illustrating my problem:

You can see that the the pages in the spread do not align (see the grey dotted lines I've drawin in).

I'm looking for help to script / control style sheets so that the right page also ends at the left page, so that there is no extra space on either page (i.e. the red arrow I've drawn on).

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Oh, okay, what you want is actually much simpler.

You need to set a document baseline grid so that every line on every page snaps to a precise spacing. It's a big jump up from letting text space itself from page to page and you may have to go back and make a number of style changes to make the baseline method work. (It is the pro way to get very clean, even layout through a book and well worth mastering... even it if brings along a few layout headaches to contend with.)

Start with this: on your master pages, select the text frame, hit Ctrl-B and under Baseline Options, check Use Custom Baseline Grid. Start adjusting it there with the other settings, and make sure all of your paragraph styles, under Indents and Spacing, are set to Align to Grid | All Lines.

There's much control from that point to get exactly the layout you want, including overrides for selected, nonstandard paragraphs.

[rob day]

Hi @jeremys45663268 , make sure the leading of all the Paragraph Styles is the same and if the style has space above or below, the space also equals the leading:

[Barb Binder]

Hi @jeremys45663268:

Like Rob, I think this comes down to simple math. Calculate the image area (page height minus top/bottom margins) to be a multiple of your leading/spacing values. You can do this with or without a defined baseline grid. 

~Barb

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Doing it Linotype style gets complicated if you have more than a few heading styles, bullets, etc. It's trivial for flowing text with chapter heads, but using a baseline grid, especially on a largely finished document that wasn't set up and formatted meticulously from page 1, can be more efficient.

[rob day]

to ensure that the last lines on all facing spreads of a book align

Setting the paragraphs to Align to baseline grid could solve the last line alignment problem, but when aligning to the baseline grid you have to watchout for other spacing problems caused by the enforced alignment.

On this spread all the lines align across the spread because all of the paragraph’s leadings are set to the same 18pts, and the space before or after is either set to 0pt or 18pt—the lines align across the spread whether I turn on align to the grid or not:

If I randomly add a half point to some of the paragraph leadings and space below, the lines no longer exactly align:

 

But when I turn on Align to Baseline Grid for all the paragraphs this happens—the leading of the paragraph I set to 18.5 doubles, and the space below the head becomes 18pt:

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

There's also the somewhat brute-force method of setting the text frames to Justify, with some limits imposed by setting the maximum paragraph spacing. It doesn't create alignment per se, but does make the bottom lines align with a little bit of jiggery.

The baseline grid method has its faults in that every paragraph style has to be adjusted to fit its rigid grooves, but I've found it creates a more professional result over long, complex books. Yes, it restricts what you can do with spacing unless you start getting into overrides... but if this was easy, we wouldn't need ID, right?

[J E L]

There's also the somewhat brute-force method of setting the text frames to Justify,

LOL, this is what I typically do for text-heavy books, and then adjust text on individual pages if some page spacing is glaringly off on one spread. Depending on the text, most readers will never notice as long as the line spacing is approximate, as our eyes tend to look for the even "box" around the text. The give and take are the Keep rules if you don't want a page to start or end with one line. Chapter ending pages are top justified text boxes, of course. I also tend not to put primary text boxes on Parent pages, as I had a nightmare with that years ago, when I inherited a book from someone else and had to change trim sizes and rearrange a few chapters. I like to place threaded text on each page with its own text box as I go. This method is probably slower, but having tried the baseline grid method a few times, I always seem to get frustrated. The good news is there are several ways to approach the puzzle. But I'm going to try baseline grid alignments again when I have a chance to see if I can "parent" it a bit more!

[rob day]

Justifying the text frame does align the bottom lines, but that can create inconsistent leading and spacing, which for me is the greater sin.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Absolutely. It's more a hack than a feature and I can't think of a time I've found it useful. More for the Coming-from-Word users than anything else. But sometimes it's a gentle enough tweak for a fast fix.

At least there are various solutions, even if the best is meticulous spacing of all your styles...

[J E L]

I agree I'm a sinner in that respect, @rob day And in your first spread example, why are there double paragraph spaces between paragraphs in some blocks of text but not in others? Is that just for your illustration? @James Gifford—NitroPress Yes, I'm typically a user mapping in text from Word. How do you have your Keep Options set when using Baseline Grid? I typically use this, but won't that screw up opposite page line alignment?

[Peter Spier]

Most of my work does not involve long docs, but I've done a half-dozen of so over the years. I've typically set body text to align to the baseline grid and let other text that uses a different font/leading (typically headings or block quotes) float with some space before/after. The space after is generally larger on the page than specified in the style when the body text realigns on the grid, but it's consistent (multi-line paragraphs with different leading can throw this spacing off, but it usually isn't noticeable and the following lines realign to grid to make things look correct again).

I use Keep Options to control widows and orphans, and when I get a case of an uneven bottom across a spread I usually cheat by manually adjusting the frame heights on that spread, adding or losing one line. Since there is no immediate reference next to these frames for comparison it goes unnoticed unless you've set page numbering or some other footer too close to the frame at the bottom. I think this looks better than an uneven spacing.

[rob day]

in your first spread example, why are there double paragraph spaces between paragraphs in some blocks of text but not in others?

I’m imitating the attachment with @jeremys45663268 ’s second post, and showing how a more complex mix of heads, lists, and paragraph spacing can be aligned across the spread without using align to baseline grid or vertical justification.

Your example is simpler—it would just be a matter of setting the head and body text styles to the same Leading amount, and then set the head’s Space Above to either 1x or 2x the leading:

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

@J E L, I only use Baseline Grid for books, and I start with it enabled and adjusted and develop and refine styles to fit. I see it as more a tool for helping enforce the 'Linotype' method of keeping all styles's spacing precisely in step than as a crutch or a fix for any less rigorous system.

It's also useful to set the baseline grid to half the body leading to allow more flexibility in things like heading and bullet spacing. For 11/14 body, for example, I might set the baseline grid at 7 points and then do all leading in multiples of 7. This allows a little more visual elegance than just 1x/2x/3x spacing, especially between major heads and text, or between bullet/number lists and body, etc.

[rob day]

For 11/14 body, for example, I might set the baseline grid at 7 points and then do all leading in multiples of 7

In that case the lines would align with the baseline grid, but they might not align with other lines across the spread. Here I have 21pt (3x7pt) as the Space Above the head—which would work if there were two heads on both pages, but doesn’t here with only one head on the right page: