Leading Settings for 2nd+ lines of text inconsistent

[chloem56448998]

Hi everyone. I would love some help please.

I'm having little problem sorting out Leading in my inDesign document. It relates to inconsistent Leading in small headers that I am using with other 'standard' paragraph text.

The subsequent images are of three headers that all have these settings. The third is the only one that actually reflects the settings. lines 1-4 show the desired Leading but the last line doesn't.

If you look at the above images, the two settings panels show my settings for the first line of the header and my settings for the subsequent lines of the header. (I only want to alter Leading between the header lines and not with previous text.)

The first image, on the other hand, does not relect the Leading settings ascribed for the headings. It remains at 14pts despite it being set at 10pts. In the second image, lines 1-4 are fine, but the last but the last line has 14pts still (please note that removing the parentheses makes no difference).

Can anybody please suggest anything I can have a look at here?

Thanks so much.

Chloe

[Jongware · Accepted solution]

I bet that when changing the size and/or leading, you forgot to select the very last character on those last lines: the Paragraph Return itself. InDesign uses the largest leading on each separate line for that entire line (which makes sense). The final Return is part of the line (which makes ... less sense. But it 'needs' to have formatting, apparently). Therefore, if you change leading by selecting some text and then applying it, make sure to also select the return at the end.

My own workflow rarely suffers from this because I use paragraph styles consistently, so if there aren't any manual overrides, all formatting is automatically applied to the entire paragraph (including its very own return). And should I have to manually select a paragraph, I make sure to triple-click (possibly quadruple-click – it's a Preference but I cannot recall what the default is), which also selects an entire paragraph-including-return.

[chloem56448998 · Accepted solution]

_Jongware_

many thanks, that works perfectly. I'd been missing the last character as I was selecting from right to left. This doesn't pick up the last character. By highlighting from left to right, it picks up the last character.

The text does have a paragraph style applied, but the reduced leading only applies to lines 2+ and I'd have to get into some nested styles. Dont have a strong desire to get into that whole new world (for me!) right now. I will just have to settle for swiping right (a la Tinder!!) for the timebeing.

Thanks so much again for your help.

Chloe.

[rob day · Accepted solution]

Also, if you don’t want mixed leadings within a paragraph there is the Apply Leading to Entire Paragraphs preference in the Type tab of Preferences.

[chloem56448998 · Accepted solution]

Rob,

thanks for the advice. As I just mentioned to _Jongware_,  I dont want the same leading through the entire para, just lines 2+. I will certainly take your advice in every other instance.

Many thanks,

Chloe