2 Correct answers
I believe we need mostly the word spacing to do the work
Hi @Typothalamus, You can use the Justification settings to force more word space without tracking the letter spacing by setting the Desired Word Spacing to something more than 100%:
Then you could then check the average character count per fully justified lines via scripting. Something like this:
var p = app.activeDocument.selection[0].paragraphs;
var lnc = 0;
var c = 0;
var ln;
for (var i = 0; i < p.length; i++){
ln = p[
But what if there are a lot of single line paragraphs...
Then they would get skipped— @Typothalamus wants to know what the average character count is for the full measure.
This is a better average for the full measure:
Than this, which is including the last lines:
24
Replies
Thanks for responding. More detail was added to the post before seeing your reply, but essentially, in typographical theory and fundamentals, there's an established ideal range of characters per line for optimal readability in body text, and this, despte all the myriad font choices, layouts and other variables, still holds due to unchanging physiology, arm length, avg distance to reading surface, etc. Typically no more than 80 characters per a line's measure is acceptabale. In some cases it can be pushed out a tad, but in several years of visual tests on the current book in development I'm on, we know that an extra 3-4 characters above about 84 is detrimental and beyond the limit.
Pictured below is a popular Taschen series book used as a model, 13.4 cm wide column, Scala Sans, likely 10 pt, yielding an avg 84.8 characters per line. Laid atop the bottom half is a scale printout of our text, same column width (not it Scala but Calluna Sans, 9.9 pt, tracked 1 unit wide), averaging 87.8 characters a line, 3 characters more.
As a visual test, covering up 3 characters on either side brings the line — suprisingly so — into a more comfortable readability. This assessment follows hundreds of hours of review, and rests on well-established theory.
Some options available include wider tracking and fractionally increasing point size. Both are visually unappealing here with the former disrupting word unity, and the latter giving too much weight and darkness on the page to the text block for us, relative to all elements. Substituting Scala Sans, which is a hair lighter in weight than Calluna Sans, at 10 pt, would help, but we can't use Scala. A custominsed version of Calluna Sans with a slightly lighter weight (and not their official Light version — too dramatically different) in 10 pt would also do it, but that is beyond our means to request from a font designer.
That's understood, really. We're not at all looking to have exactly 82 characters per each line, every single line - but just as a global average. Given that point size is set, as mentioned, and not changing (unless moving out to two decimal places, very fractionally) and tracking, as also mentioned, shouldn't be tweaked much further, if at all, and the column width is set, then what options are left? H&J is effectively all that's left, no?
It seems we need mostly more word space. So what setting recommendations, ballpark, are there to H&J that might bring us towards the goal of reducing character count by about 3 characters per line (on average)? The current settings again are below. I've tried, for example, setting desired word space percentages much higher, but to very little effect - perhaps it's constrained by justification. Any rate, thank you.
Indeed it seems to make a meaningful difference, at this end of the spectrum, whether we violate the established 80 max character count recommendation by 4 or by 8. This seems the same as avoiding an overcrowed (simply, tight) line by that amount of characters.
Similarly, narrowing the column by 0.5 cm is also very impactful in terms of easing readability, which, incidentally, equates to about 4 characters as well. However we don't wish to go the route of redesigning the columns and layout broadly.
If looking closely at the Taschen model in Scala Sans shared above, there's a bit more word spacing evident, which seems key. Bumping Calluna Sans from 9.9 pt to 10 helps, but gets too heavy in weight. We end up being constraint-trapped. But coaxing mostly more word space out of the settings towards the target of an 84 character count average by some means seems the way.
It may help to share H&J settings on our layout here. Thanks for responding.
I believe we need mostly the word spacing to do the work
Hi @Typothalamus, You can use the Justification settings to force more word space without tracking the letter spacing by setting the Desired Word Spacing to something more than 100%:
Then you could then check the average character count per fully justified lines via scripting. Something like this:
var p = app.activeDocument.selection[0].paragraphs;
var lnc = 0;
var c = 0;
var ln;
for (var i = 0; i < p.length; i++){
ln = p[i].lines
lnc += ln.length - 1
for (var j = 0; j < ln.length - 1; j++){
c += ln[j].characters.length
};
};
alert("The Selected Text Averages " + (c/lnc).toFixed(2) +" Characters Per Line")
But what if there are a lot of single line paragraphs...
Then they would get skipped— @Typothalamus wants to know what the average character count is for the full measure.
This is a better average for the full measure:
Than this, which is including the last lines:
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