Optical margin alignment: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:17, 4 April 2013

Revision as of 04:11, 30 June 2013

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== Use ==

[[File:Optical Margin Alignment.png|thumb|Text is outdented into margins]]

It is designed to be used for body text, not for artistic text, table text, or [[headline]]s. It also works well for [[Block quotations|block quotes]], which benefit from “hung punctuation.” The “Smart Quotes” are outdented 100% into the margin or paragraph indent, so that subsequent lines of text align with the first character in the quotation.

The optimal values used for the outdents is font dependent. A [[typeface]] that has capital A, V, W, and Y with vertical sides, needs no outdents for these letters, but the capital T and punctuation will still benefit from using Optical Margin Alignment.

If text has narrow gutters between columns, table borders, or any straight edge such as an image near to the edge of the text, Optical Margin Alignment should not be used because the proximity of the straight line will break the optical illusion.

This technique is sometimes called hanging punctuation, as it is useful mostly for punctuation marks such as comma, period and the like. However, margin [[kerning]], the slight shifting of certain characters at the margins so the margins look smooth, is a more general concept, as it can be usefully applied to certain letters as well.

=== Suggested Values for Optical Justification ===

These values may be suitable for common [[serif|seriffed]]fed fonts like [[Times New Roman]], [[Palatino]], or [[Garamond]]. Other fonts may need different values.

{| class="wikitable"

|-

! Characters !! Value

|-

| " “ ” ' ‘ ’ , . || 100%

|-

| hyphen || 75%