Keeping Lines Together to Avoid Typographic Catastrophes

CATEGORIES: Design Tip of the Day, InDesign | Jeff Witchel | October 06, 2006

There are certain typographical mistakes that stand out like a sore thumb in columns of type. Some examples - the first line of a paragraph sitting all by itself at the bottom of a column, or the last line of a paragraph sitting at the top of the next column, or my favorite, a subhead sitting at the bottom of a column with no copy under it. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could format your running text in a way that these problems will be avoided automatically.

That’s where “Keep Options” come in. Look under the Options menu of the Paragraph palette for “Keep Options” and in the dialog window that opens, you can specify in the “Keep with Next” section, a minimum number of lines from the next paragraph that a paragraph, such as a subhead, will be followed by in a column. Or in the “Keep Lines Together” section, you can specify the minimum number of lines that a paragraph can have at the bottom or top of a page or column. Or you can even choose to keep all lines in a paragraph together in the same column or on the same page. The best part is that all this formatting can be part of a Paragraph Style to help you avoid typographic catastrophes throughout your layout.

Tip provided by Jeff Witchel, Certified Adobe® Training Provider.

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