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Typothalamus
Typothalamus
Known Participant
February 26, 2022
Answered

Grids or Guides along X-height

  • February 26, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 773 views

I’d like a grid or guides option with horizontal lines for:

 

  1. x-height of body text
  2. ascender height of body text
  3. base of body text

    Finding after an extended period of self study reviewing dozens of Taschen publications (and this applies far more broadly), photos and other elements often align to the main text's x-height, not just to base or ascender. For example, photo captions or the first line of margin notes or captions beside the main text don't align to the base of the body text, but rather their x-height top aligns to the top of the adjacent body text x-height. How are such guides achieved in ID? Seems ideal to have very light but different color guides for 1, 2, & 3 respectively. 

    Admittedly this is a very incomplete understanding of grids in ID, but I'm aware of the goal: conforming and aligning elements to the main text's x-height. Many thanks in advance.
This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer rob day

Hi @Typothalamus , some of what you are looking for might be handled by your Baseline Grid Preference setup and the Text Frame Options. Here I’ve setup my Baseline Grid relative to the margins and starting at 0

 

 

 

My text frame is snapped to the margin and its Text Frame Options First Baseline Offset is set to the default Ascent, so the 10/14 pt text’s ascent line lines up with the grid. I can change the First Baseline Offset to x-Height and the text’s x-height will align with the baseline grid

 

 

If I choose Leading, the baselines line up with the Baseline Grid.

 

 

The other option would be to set regular page guides to the font’s ascender and x-height lines, which can be scripted—keep in mind the ascender is variable and depends on how the font was designed. I’m guessing you would not want to try that manually

2 replies

L
Community Expert
LaubenderCommunity Expert
Community Expert
March 3, 2022

Typothalamus said: "I must reverse engineer now."

 

Hi,

a great help with that could be a script by Roland Dreger. Look into:

setUpBaselineGrid.jsx

https://www.rolanddreger.net/de/9/grundlinienraster-einrichten-per-skript/#

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

    rob day
    Community Expert
    rob dayCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    February 27, 2022

    Hi @Typothalamus , some of what you are looking for might be handled by your Baseline Grid Preference setup and the Text Frame Options. Here I’ve setup my Baseline Grid relative to the margins and starting at 0

     

     

     

    My text frame is snapped to the margin and its Text Frame Options First Baseline Offset is set to the default Ascent, so the 10/14 pt text’s ascent line lines up with the grid. I can change the First Baseline Offset to x-Height and the text’s x-height will align with the baseline grid

     

     

    If I choose Leading, the baselines line up with the Baseline Grid.

     

     

    The other option would be to set regular page guides to the font’s ascender and x-height lines, which can be scripted—keep in mind the ascender is variable and depends on how the font was designed. I’m guessing you would not want to try that manually

      Typothalamus
      TypothalamusAuthor
      Known Participant
      March 3, 2022

      Hi @rob day –  thanks for your detailed explanation. To be quite honest, I've come the old and analogue route to understanding grids, reading the classic Grid Systems by Josef Müller Brockman, spending long periods scrutinizing layouts, and have been executing things totally manually rather than in the systems that ID offers, as I found that easier at first, but now need to learn how ID wants this to work. I must reverse engineer now. So what I have is a refined layout that is effectively a derivation of a Taschen layout that looks excellent, but is breaking all the rules in how to set up a project in ID. I need to walk backwards and rebuild. I know everything that I want in terms of the grid, alignments, and integration and alignment of elements, just not so clear on how to build this in ID the correct way. If you were I, really what's the basic order of operations (the first 2-3 steps) to taking it all apart and putting it together, properly? I've litterally done a facsimile measured by hand under a lupe and printed out at full page size to confirm. Shocking...

      rob day
      Community Expert
      rob dayCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      March 3, 2022

      Also are you using Parent (Master) Pages, Object Styles, and Paragraph Syles in your setup?

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