Make text perfectly centered

[Nathan22148242akgt]

Hi folks,

This might sound like a really simply question and apologies if I'm missing something obvious. I'm trying to centre some text within a box so that it's perfectly equal (i.e exactly the same distance from the left as the right).

With the example below, the number 7 is perfectly centred. However when I type two characters (10), you can see that it bears to the right slightly (more obvious when the text is highlighted). Is there an easy way to make it centred? 

Thanks in advance.

[Laubender]

Hi Nathan,

depending if the OpenType feature is available with your font you could try to use Proportional Lining for Digits.

From my German InDesign where this OpenType feature is named "Proportionale Versalziffern". In a French UI this should be "Chiffres alignés proportionnels", with a Spanish UI this should be "Cifras proporcionales alineadas":

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Nathan22148242akgt]

Thanks for the speedy reply. That's definitely helped the 10 look more central. 

However, I'm still having the same problem when there's a letter involved (see example below, the 33 is fine, but the N6 text is slightly bearing to the right again as shown by the red lines). 

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

You are dealing with how the font was designed; every letter is positioned on a matrix with a certain distance from the edges. So as you can see in my sample, the "N" has more space from the left edge of the matrix to the edge of the letterform than the "6" does from the right edge. This is up to the designer/foundry. Typographically, for optical balance, straight edges are designed with more space than rounded or "pointy" shapes.

And, with numerals, they were traditionally on the same width matrix no matter what number it was so columns of numbers would line up, hence "Traditional" and why tere's so much space left and right on a "1". When you select "Proportional", InDesign is overriding that traditional matrix to do things like snug up space around a numeral "1" (for obvious reasons).

Outside of using "Optical Margin Alignment" there's not much you can do "automatically"

 

[Laubender]

Also see into:

https://www.typotheque.com/fonts/choosing_numerals

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Laubender]

Hi Nathan,

if you always want to do the alignment with the outer shape forms of the glyphs, you have to convert them to outlines and center the result. With editable type there is no "one-size-fits-all" OpenType feature for this, I think.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[TᴀW]

+1 for everything Uwe says.

But also the fact is to get text that looks perfectly centred you have to eyeball it. You can't just go by the numbers. Because the shapes of the numbers (or letters) require optical adjustment.

For instance, if you're setting the number 41, even if you've got exactly the same distance left and right by the numbers, the number will appear to be too far right, because the point of the 4 is visually week, so the whole thing would need to be skewed a little to the left to look visually centred.

Ariel

[Nathan22148242akgt]

Thanks for your help, both of you.

I was hoping there would be an auto- fix as I have several hundred of these to do! It looks like the Proportional Lining tip will solve most of them, but I'll just manually center the one's which look off.

[rob day]

I was hoping there would be an auto- fix as I have several hundred of these to do!

You might want to experiment with the text frames‘ Optical Margin Alignment, which attempts to optically center the characters:

Turned off:

[rob day]

Hi @Nathan22148242akgt , Also, a font’s characters have side bearings, so the amount of side bearing space to the left of a capital N would vary from font to font.

You could add a space before the first character, adjust the space’s tracking and customize the alignment of the text to the frame edge, but I think you would have to vary the amount for each character combination:

Also, the amount of Optical Margin Alignment applied to the text frame has some affect:

And, even though I‘ve metrically aligned the N and the 6 to the frame edges, optically it looks like there is more space to the right of the 6 because of the character’s shape:

[Laubender]

Hi Nathan,

something you could explore:

"Hand tweaking" the center position of the characters with e.g. setting the paragraph to right aligned and adding a small rectangle anchored behind the last character. Select the anchored frame and change its width with the Transform panel's input field for percentages for subtle movements using the keyboard arrow keys:

The selected anchored rectangle gives you nearly no distraction.

But if this still distracts you, open a new layout window for the same document and spread and change the view there. In one layout window you do the manipulation of the width, either using a rectangle like the one in my screenshot above or an insertion point for changing kerning values, the other layout window is showing the bare result without guides and stuff.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Laubender]

Two layout windows where on the right the text frame is selected and moved.

On the left you see the immediate result without optical distraction:

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[rob day]

My rulers tell me the visible bounds of the letters are centered, but my lying eyes tell me they are pushed to the left.

[Laubender]

Wouldn't that be a perfect task for Adobe Sensei?

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[rob day]

OMA is pretty good—but I wonder how Sensei would handle this:

[Peter Kahrel]

Nathan -- The upshot of what Uwe and Rob pointed out is that you can get close, but you'll never get there entirely. You'll always end up having to adjust text manually to centre it optically. It's virtually impossible to set headlines and poetry automatically, there's always something to adjust.

I can recommend this title: "Finer points in the spacing & arrangement of type" (Geoffrey Dowding). After reading this wonderful book you'll be convinced that you can automate to a certain extent, but manual intervention is always needed.

P.