Perfect left aligned text

[Jacopo32881229sbjr]

I’m tryng to achieve the “perfect” left aligned text as you see in the picture. I can kern and track the text myself, but for magazines it takes way to much time. I’ve tried looking for a script with not much luck and the scripts I made myself are not super useful. does anybody know if there are scripts for InDesign to achieve this effect?

 

[Peter Kahrel]

Can you define 'perfect left-aligned text'? I'm guessing you mean ragged right but as little gappy as possible.

[Jacopo32881229sbjr]

Hello Peter, thanks for replying. I actually read about your scripts while researching this topic. My mother tongue is Italian so it might be I'm describing something with the wrong terms. But I think I am looking for what you're saying: the text in the pictures is like a "comb" where line A is basically the length of the text frame and line B is slightly shorter and the all process is repeated for all the lines, so the scheme is long line-short line-long line and so on. I've tried and of course I have massive gaps here and there. Does it make sense? I say "perfect" because visually in my opinion it looks very neat but I understand that to achieve this you have to compromise the kerning and spacing. 

[Peter Kahrel]

Aha, I see what you mean now. So you would be willing to have lines with different word and letter spacing in order to achieve the comb effect? It could be scripted, but it won't be easy.

[Jacopo32881229sbjr]

Yes, I mean, I'd love to at least be able to set the text this way and give it a try. I work in magazines and catalogs and lately I've seen this type of left aligned text popping up here and there. I just wonder how do people do it. If it's all by hand it takes ages! If I zoom in in the picture I posted the gaps are not outrageous, I mean it's not like there are massive holes in the lines. It is clear though that kerning and tracking are all mixed up to achieve this but it's readable and looks very orderly (it's probably just my OCD). 

[Peter Kahrel · Accepted solution]

You don't in fact need a script. It wouldn't be easy to code and it'd pretty slow. And you's have to undo and redo it every time the text changes. Instead, you can create a, well, comb, with wrap set, where the comb's teeth overlap alternating lines of text. All you need to do is move the comb over the text. See the video. The comb is a grouped collection of text frames with wrap applied.

If you have a lot of text then you could create a comb somewhere on a master page and a script that places copies of the comb on all text frames.

[Jacopo32881229sbjr]

OMG Peter you just blew my mind! I guess this is a good example of transversal thinking or whatever you call it. Works perfectly! i mean, it does exatcly what i wanted. Thanks again for the help!