{"course":{"slug":"vector-and-print","title":"Vectors, Logos and Things That Get Printed","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print","level":"beginner","track":"create"},"lesson":{"slug":"paragraphs-measure-and-rag","title":"Setting a paragraph somebody can read","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print/paragraphs-measure-and-rag","position":22,"of":73,"minutes":9,"answer":"Size, leading and measure carry most of readability (45 to 75 characters a line, leading at 120 to 145%) and justified text needs a long measure plus controlled H&J values or it develops rivers.","keyIdea":"Size, leading and measure carry most of readability (45 to 75 characters a line, leading at 120 to 145%) and justified text needs a long measure plus controlled H&J values or it develops rivers."},"body":{"format":"markdown","text":"## Three numbers decide almost everything\n\n**Size, leading, measure.** Get these right and mediocre type looks competent. Get them wrong and no amount of typeface choice rescues it.\n\n- **Size.** Body text in a book or brochure is 9 to 11 pt. In a wall-mounted notice it is whatever is legible at the distance. On a phone it is 16 px, because that is the browser default for a reason.\n- **Leading**: line spacing, measured baseline to baseline. Start at **120 to 145%** of the size. 10 pt type takes 13 or 14 pt leading. The looser end for a long measure or a large x-height face, the tighter end for short lines.\n- **Measure**: the line length. **45 to 75 characters**, counting spaces. Below 45, the eye jumps back too often and the rag gets ugly. Above 75, the return sweep loses its place and readers skip lines.\n\nMeasure and leading interact: a long measure needs more leading, because the return sweep is longer and the eye needs a clearer target.\n\nTo count your measure without counting: set a line of lowercase alphabet twice: `abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz`. Roughly two and a half alphabets is the right column width.\n\n## Ragged right or justified\n\n**Ragged right**: one word space everywhere, uneven right edge. Almost always the better choice, and always the better choice at a narrow measure.\n\n**Justified**: word spaces stretched to fill each line. Requires hyphenation on, and requires a measure long enough that stretching a few spaces is not visible. Justified text at a 45-character measure produces **rivers**: vertical channels of white running down the paragraph, which you see instantly once you have been told to look.\n\nIf you justify, set the H&J values rather than accepting the defaults. In InDesign, Paragraph panel ▸ Justification:\n\n- Word spacing: minimum 80%, desired 100%, maximum 133%\n- Letter spacing: minimum 0%, desired 0%, maximum 4%, never more; stretched letterspacing in body text is worse than an uneven rag\n- Glyph scaling: 98/100/102% at most\n\nInDesign's **Adobe Paragraph Composer** looks at the whole paragraph rather than one line at a time and produces markedly better justification than the single-line composer. It is on by default in recent versions; check, because it is the largest single improvement available for free. Scribus has no equivalent; LibreOffice has none; LaTeX has had one since 1982 and is still the best justification available anywhere.\n\n## Fixing a rag\n\nA good rag is a soft, irregular wave. Bad rags have shapes:\n\n- **A ladder**: three or more consecutive lines ending in a hyphen. Limit consecutive hyphens to 2.\n- **A wedge**: lines getting steadily shorter or longer, which reads as a deliberate shape and is not.\n- **A hole**: one very short line beside long ones.\n\nFix with a discretionary hyphen (**Ctrl+Shift+-**), a non-breaking space (**Ctrl+Alt+Space**) to keep a short word with its neighbour, or by editing the copy. Never fix a rag by tracking one paragraph; the change in colour is more visible than the rag was.\n\n## Widows and orphans\n\n- An **orphan** is a lone first line of a paragraph stranded at the bottom of a column.\n- A **widow** is a lone last line carried to the top of the next column, or, in the stricter sense, a single word alone on the last line of a paragraph.\n\nSet *Keep Options* ▸ Keep with next: 2 lines, and start/end lines minimum 2. In Scribus this is in the paragraph style's *Distances and Alignment*. Fix a single-word last line with a non-breaking space between the last two words.\n\n## Optical margin alignment\n\nPunctuation and the round or diagonal parts of letters make a left or right edge look ragged even when it is mathematically flush. **Optical margin alignment** hangs quotes, hyphens and the overhang of `o`, `T` and `W` slightly outside the column so the edge *looks* straight.\n\nInDesign: Story panel ▸ Optical Margin Alignment, set to the type size. It is one checkbox, it is free, and it is the difference people notice without being able to name.\n\n## The free path\n\nScribus does styles, H&J, keep options and hyphenation properly, and is capable of a well-set book. LibreOffice Writer with real paragraph styles will set a readable novel interior. LaTeX sets the best justified text of anything on this list and is the hardest to control visually. All three are free; the thing you cannot get for nothing is Adobe's paragraph composer and optical margins."},"check":{"question":"A 10/12 pt justified column is set at a 40-character measure with default justification settings. Vertical channels of white appear running down the paragraph. What is the mechanism, and what is the smallest effective change?","options":[{"text":"Leading is too tight for the size, so lines crowd and the white between words appears to connect vertically.","correct":false,"tempting":"Tighter leading makes rivers harder to see, not easier; the channels come from horizontal word spaces aligning, which leading does not control."},{"text":"A short measure forces a few word spaces to stretch a long way, and oversized spaces on successive lines align vertically.","correct":true},{"text":"Hyphenation is switched off, so long words are pushed whole to the next line and leave large gaps behind them on every line.","correct":false,"tempting":"Close, but incomplete: hyphenation helps, and the underlying cause is that 40 characters gives the composer too few spaces to distribute the slack across."},{"text":"The typeface has unusually wide default word spacing, and reducing the word space in the character panel will remove the channels.","correct":false,"tempting":"Justification overrides the font's word space entirely; the stretched value is computed per line, so the font's default is not what you are seeing."}]},"prev":{"slug":"kerning-a-wordmark","title":"Kerning a wordmark by hand","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print/kerning-a-wordmark"},"next":{"slug":"type-on-a-path","title":"Type on a curve, and why it splays","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print/type-on-a-path"},"authorship":"Founder and series editor: Dr Mustafa Mun. Written by AI models to a written standard. Exam keys checked blind by a second model: 3,665 of 3,666 agreed. Academic review invited.","review":{"status":"Draft, open for academic review"},"cite":"Addaly (2026) 'Setting a paragraph somebody can read', in Vectors, Logos and Things That Get Printed. Edited by M. Mun. Addaly. Available at: https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print/paragraphs-measure-and-rag (Accessed: 13 October 2026).","licence":{"name":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"},"reader":{"schema":1,"title":"Setting a paragraph somebody can read","courseTitle":"Vectors, Logos and Things That Get Printed","module":{"index":3,"slug":"type-as-shape","title":"Type, which is also vector"},"answer":null,"keyIdea":"Size, leading and measure carry most of readability (45 to 75 characters a line, leading at 120 to 145%) and justified text needs a long measure plus controlled H&J values or it develops rivers.","hero":{"kind":"plate","image":null,"alt":null,"caption":null},"blocks":[{"t":"h2","id":"three-numbers-decide-almost-everything","runs":[{"text":"Three numbers decide almost everything"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Size, leading, measure.","b":true},{"text":" Get these right and mediocre type looks competent. Get them wrong and no amount of typeface choice rescues it."}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"Size.","b":true},{"text":" Body text in a book or brochure is 9 to 11 pt. In a wall-mounted notice it is whatever is legible at the distance. On a phone it is 16 px, because that is the browser default for a reason."}],[{"text":"Leading","b":true},{"text":": line spacing, measured baseline to baseline. Start at "},{"text":"120 to 145%","b":true},{"text":" of the size. 10 pt type takes 13 or 14 pt leading. The looser end for a long measure or a large x-height face, the tighter end for short lines."}],[{"text":"Measure","b":true},{"text":": the line length. "},{"text":"45 to 75 characters","b":true},{"text":", counting spaces. Below 45, the eye jumps back too often and the rag gets ugly. Above 75, the return sweep loses its place and readers skip lines."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Measure and leading interact: a long measure needs more leading, because the return sweep is longer and the eye needs a clearer target."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"To count your measure without counting: set a line of lowercase alphabet twice: "},{"text":"abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz","code":true},{"text":". Roughly two and a half alphabets is the right column width."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"ragged-right-or-justified","runs":[{"text":"Ragged right or justified"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Ragged right","b":true},{"text":": one word space everywhere, uneven right edge. Almost always the better choice, and always the better choice at a narrow measure."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Justified","b":true},{"text":": word spaces stretched to fill each line. Requires hyphenation on, and requires a measure long enough that stretching a few spaces is not visible. Justified text at a 45-character measure produces "},{"text":"rivers","b":true},{"text":": vertical channels of white running down the paragraph, which you see instantly once you have been told to look."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"If you justify, set the H&J values rather than accepting the defaults. In InDesign, Paragraph panel ▸ Justification:"}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"Word spacing: minimum 80%, desired 100%, maximum 133%"}],[{"text":"Letter spacing: minimum 0%, desired 0%, maximum 4%, never more; stretched letterspacing in body text is worse than an uneven rag"}],[{"text":"Glyph scaling: 98/100/102% at most"}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"InDesign’s "},{"text":"Adobe Paragraph Composer","b":true},{"text":" looks at the whole paragraph rather than one line at a time and produces markedly better justification than the single-line composer. It is on by default in recent versions; check, because it is the largest single improvement available for free. Scribus has no equivalent; LibreOffice has none; LaTeX has had one since 1982 and is still the best justification available anywhere."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"fixing-a-rag","runs":[{"text":"Fixing a rag"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"A good rag is a soft, irregular wave. Bad rags have shapes:"}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"A ladder","b":true},{"text":": three or more consecutive lines ending in a hyphen. Limit consecutive hyphens to 2."}],[{"text":"A wedge","b":true},{"text":": lines getting steadily shorter or longer, which reads as a deliberate shape and is not."}],[{"text":"A hole","b":true},{"text":": one very short line beside long ones."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Fix with a discretionary hyphen ("},{"text":"Ctrl+Shift+-","b":true},{"text":"), a non-breaking space ("},{"text":"Ctrl+Alt+Space","b":true},{"text":") to keep a short word with its neighbour, or by editing the copy. Never fix a rag by tracking one paragraph; the change in colour is more visible than the rag was."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"widows-and-orphans","runs":[{"text":"Widows and orphans"}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"An "},{"text":"orphan","b":true},{"text":" is a lone first line of a paragraph stranded at the bottom of a column."}],[{"text":"A "},{"text":"widow","b":true},{"text":" is a lone last line carried to the top of the next column, or, in the stricter sense, a single word alone on the last line of a paragraph."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Set "},{"text":"Keep Options","i":true},{"text":" ▸ Keep with next: 2 lines, and start/end lines minimum 2. In Scribus this is in the paragraph style’s "},{"text":"Distances and Alignment","i":true},{"text":". Fix a single-word last line with a non-breaking space between the last two words."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"optical-margin-alignment","runs":[{"text":"Optical margin alignment"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Punctuation and the round or diagonal parts of letters make a left or right edge look ragged even when it is mathematically flush. "},{"text":"Optical margin alignment","b":true},{"text":" hangs quotes, hyphens and the overhang of "},{"text":"o","code":true},{"text":", "},{"text":"T","code":true},{"text":" and "},{"text":"W","code":true},{"text":" slightly outside the column so the edge "},{"text":"looks","i":true},{"text":" straight."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"InDesign: Story panel ▸ Optical Margin Alignment, set to the type size. It is one checkbox, it is free, and it is the difference people notice without being able to name."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"the-free-path","runs":[{"text":"The free path"}],"role":"free"},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Scribus does styles, H&J, keep options and hyphenation properly, and is capable of a well-set book. LibreOffice Writer with real paragraph styles will set a readable novel interior. LaTeX sets the best justified text of anything on this list and is the hardest to control visually. All three are free; the thing you cannot get for nothing is Adobe’s paragraph composer and optical margins."}]}],"check":{"question":[{"text":"A 10/12 pt justified column is set at a 40-character measure with default justification settings. Vertical channels of white appear running down the paragraph. What is the mechanism, and what is the smallest effective change?"}],"options":[{"text":[{"text":"Leading is too tight for the size, so lines crowd and the white between words appears to connect vertically."}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"Tighter leading makes rivers harder to see, not easier; the channels come from horizontal word spaces aligning, which leading does not control."}]},{"text":[{"text":"A short measure forces a few word spaces to stretch a long way, and oversized spaces on successive lines align vertically."}],"correct":true,"tempting":null},{"text":[{"text":"Hyphenation is switched off, so long words are pushed whole to the next line and leave large gaps behind them on every line."}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"Close, but incomplete: hyphenation helps, and the underlying cause is that 40 characters gives the composer too few spaces to distribute the slack across."}]},{"text":[{"text":"The typeface has unusually wide default word spacing, and reducing the word space in the character panel will remove the channels."}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"Justification overrides the font’s word space entirely; the stretched value is computed per line, so the font’s default is not what you are seeing."}]}],"order":[2,1,3,0],"why":null},"prev":{"slug":"kerning-a-wordmark","title":"Kerning a wordmark by hand","minutes":9},"next":{"slug":"type-on-a-path","title":"Type on a curve, and why it splays","minutes":8}}}