Tips for justifying long document text - Word 2000

[Guest]

I am finishing a long book (230+ pages) and the client wants this justified.

I have turned on hyphenation (1.3cm zone - max of 2 per para), selected the
option of using Wordperfect full justification, and allowed at least 14pt line
spacing for an 11pt true type body font (Georgia). I am not kerning fonts as
True Type fonts should, in theory, auto-adjust - and I have read that Word
2000's kerning feature is not that great.

The effect looks very good except that, in places, the justification does not
seem to work well.

Are there any tips for improving problem areas of justification?

The only ones I know are as follows:-

a)For selective problem text increase of decrease the character spacing by 0.1pt
b)Insert a non-breaking space or a 1/4 em space
c)Use a line break at the end of a sentence which finishes at the end of a line.

Does anyone have any suggestions, ideas or tools that can help with this task?

Thanks in advance,




Steven

 

[Robert M. Franz]

Hi Steven

I am finishing a long book (230+ pages) and the client wants this
justified.

I have turned on hyphenation (1.3cm zone - max of 2 per para), selected
the option of using Wordperfect full justification, and allowed at least
14pt line spacing for an 11pt true type body font (Georgia).

To judge the quality of your choice, one would need to know how long
lines are. As a rule of thumb, the longer the line, the more spacing you
need.

I am not
kerning fonts as True Type fonts should, in theory, auto-adjust - and I
have read that Word 2000's kerning feature is not that great.

I have never heard of that "auto-adjust" (this might not mean much) you
mention. However, I find you absolutely need to kern and I haven't found
a good reason why this isn't set as per default in Word (I mean,
Microsoft assumes everybody has a reasonable fast Internet access these
days, so why not assume a decent computer where the speed it takes to do
kerning is negligible indeed).

The effect looks very good except that, in places, the justification
does not seem to work well.

That doesn't really explain: What is it that disturbs you?

Are there any tips for improving problem areas of justification?

The only ones I know are as follows:-

a)For selective problem text increase of decrease the character spacing
by 0.1pt
b)Insert a non-breaking space or a 1/4 em space
c)Use a line break at the end of a sentence which finishes at the end of
a line.

Your a) is one I've sometimes used, but really spearingly (plus: I've
had some horrible results under certain circumstances (printer drivers)
which made still less eager to use it. It certainly is something you do
before the final printout only.

I use non-breaking spaces (b)) sometimes to keep words together that
must stay that way, or figures and their units. Often enough, the
results look a bit odd (in justification) and I'd wish there was a
non-breaking space which acts like a "non-breaker" only and not like a
fixed-width space.

Your c) is practically a no-no. Really horrible when you have to repaginate.

Does anyone have any suggestions, ideas or tools that can help with this
task?

If you want really (or: nearly ) professional justified text, I think
you need to do it manually. Or do it automatically (and without any
fixed number of consecutive hyphenations) but still apply optional hyphens.

HTH
..bob

 

[Guest]

If you want really (or: nearly ) professional justified text, I think
you need to do it manually. Or do it automatically (and without any
fixed number of consecutive hyphenations) but still apply optional hyphens.

HTH
.bob

Thanks for your reply bob.

I am working on with an average line length of 62 char approximately.

That is a page width of 140mm with 18mm margins left and right, based on an 11
point font size. Line spacing is 'at least 14pt', though I am going to try
shifting this up to 'at least 15pt'.

My complaint is that for a great many of the paragraphs word seems to do quite a
good job. But on some paragraphs I see very poor, over-wide, wordspacing which
looks plain naff. There seems no easy way to cure this unless Word looks at the
paragraph as a whole.

Quick question? With manual hyphenation Word appears to want to hyphenate
wherever it feels appropriate on the line. My client does not like this effect
and prefers hyphenation on the last word(s) of the line.

I understand that I can say "no" to manual hyphenation suggestions - but is
there a way to tighten the target zone?

Thanks again,



Steven

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

When you hyphenate automatically, Word will insert optional hyphens wherever
appropriate. These do not appear as hyphens unless the word is broken at the
end of a line. Optional hyphens do not print and are visible only with
nonprinting characters displayed. I personally never use automatic
hyphenation. I prefer to hyphenate manually and conservatively.

 

[Robert M. Franz]

Hi Steven

I am working on with an average line length of 62 char approximately.

That is a page width of 140mm with 18mm margins left and right, based on
an 11 point font size. Line spacing is 'at least 14pt', though I am
going to try shifting this up to 'at least 15pt'.

11 on 15 is a lot, but when I look at a page with 11cm long paragraphs
and in Georgia, I'd prefer that over 11 on 14.

My complaint is that for a great many of the paragraphs word seems to do
quite a good job. But on some paragraphs I see very poor, over-wide,
wordspacing which looks plain naff. There seems no easy way to cure this
unless Word looks at the paragraph as a whole.

Which it doesn't. It really only takes line for line (and stops
inserting a hyphen only when you set a max. number of hyphenations in a
row). This means you have to overrule it now and then, and that's where
the optional hyphens come into play: "Insert | Symbol | Special:
Optional hyphen" will tell you what shortcut is assigned to it on your
system.

You have to look at the whole paragraph and decide whether you need to
insert such a hyphen before or after the line where you are not
satisfied with the result.

Greetings
..bob

 

[Guest]

Hi Steven



11 on 15 is a lot, but when I look at a page with 11cm long paragraphs
and in Georgia, I'd prefer that over 11 on 14.




Which it doesn't. It really only takes line for line (and stops
inserting a hyphen only when you set a max. number of hyphenations in a
row). This means you have to overrule it now and then, and that's where
the optional hyphens come into play: "Insert | Symbol | Special:
Optional hyphen" will tell you what shortcut is assigned to it on your
system.

You have to look at the whole paragraph and decide whether you need to
insert such a hyphen before or after the line where you are not
satisfied with the result.

Greetings
.bob

Thanks - that has clarified a lot for me. I will give this a go and come back if
there are any further issues!

Regards,



Steven