Technobabble
Consistency key to readability
Style sheets make life easier for reader, designer
O
ne of the most jolting experiences for a reader –and obviously for the journalism educator–is reading one page with body copy of one style and then moving to another story and having to adjust to body copy of another style. It makes the publication difficult to read and does not help the publication establish an identity. Since the early versions of the software, PageMaker and Quark XPress have made consistency within a publication easy. Define a style (“body copy” for example), and then apply that style to the text. Before such style sheets could be
automated, publications often had posters or handbooks all around the composing room defining what text, captions and headlines were supposed to look like. Even today, it’s easiest to define a style when you know what you want the outcome to be. For example, you could decide that body copy will always be 10 pt. Berkeley with auto leading, an indent of the first line of the paragraph at one pica, no tabs and justified. That’s what the body copy for C:JET is. Then using the Define Styles option under the Type menu in PageMaker or the Style Sheets option under the Edit menu in Quark, create a new
character style with those specifications. Then it’s simply a matter of selecting the text and applying that style. Quark and InDesign add a little complexity by allowing the user to define a character style or a paragraph style. Prior to this differentiation, designers could only define styles by the paragraph. All of the text in a paragraph had to be in one style or had to be manually changed. Now, a character style allows a designer to change one character (a dingbat at the end of a story for example).
Defining styles helps ensure consistency for the reader and for the designer. Plus, it makes production much easier. • By Bradley Wilson.
Character styles vs. Paragraph styles Quark and InDesign allows the user to define a character style independent of the paragraph style, allowing for consistency and complexity. ■ THIS PARAGRAPH contains one paragraph style (nutgraf) and three character styles, one for the initial dingbat, one for the first two words and one for the rest of the paragraph.
Summer 2000
DISPLAY CONSISTENCY
A thorough staff manual will include a mock-up of sample pages and a listing of each style common to the page, defining the look for everything from the byline to the caption to the subheads to the headlines on the teasers in the “inside” box. Similarly, the pages on the yearbook design should show the styles for each different section.
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STEP 1: DEFINE STYLE
SELECT Define Styles… from the Type menu in PageMaker or Style Sheets… from the Edit menu in Quark. Select New from the available buttons. Decide what you want the type to look like. For this illustration, we’re going to define the body copy for this magazine – you’ll notice it’s the same on every page. Headlines are consistent within a section (just like the student life section of a yearbook should have a consisten headline style).
Applying a style
STEP 2: NAME STYLE
NAME the style. Make it something intuitive like “body copy” or “body text” or “story.” Notice how the fine print tells you the current characteristics of the type in that style.
SELECT TEXT
STEP 3: TYPE SPECS
Define the type specifications. Pay close attention to the type font and leading. (In Quark, leading is defined under Paragraph formats.) Note: auto leading is typically defined as 120 percent of the point size.
After you’ve defined a style, the next step is to select the text to which you need to apply a style. After importing a text file, the easiest thing is to Select All (A) from the Edit menu ensuring that you haven’t missed any text.
STEP 4: PARAGRAPH SPECS
Define the paragraph specifications. Some designers prefer to define a paragraph indent of one or two picas and other designers prefer to use tabs at the beginning of each paragraph. Both will work, but consistency is important. Don’t forget to specify the appropriate alignment.
STEP 5: TABS
Few styles other than the scoreboard and index will need tabs unless you use tabs at the beginning of each paragraph.
STEP 6: HYPHENATION
In PageMaker, the fourth area to define is Hyphenation. Turn it off for headlines and the index. Most people keep hyphenation on for body copy. Some people prefer manual hyphenation for things such as inset quotations.
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APPLY STYLE
Then select the appropriate style from the appropriate menu (Type/Tyle Style in PageMaker, Style/Character or Paragraph Style in QuarkXPress) or from the Style palette.
Summer 2000
He was interested in games and sports and learned ice skating as a small boy, but his technique was never good and he often crashed. One of his greatest passions, however, was reading. His mother and Sister Sue (his sister) introduced him to magazines and books long before he started school. Before he learned to talk he learned his letters and soon was able to compare the BYLINE Paragraph style 1 pt. rule below paragraph; aligned left; 12 pt. leading Character style “last name” 10 pt. Futura Bold Character style “first name” 10 pt. Berkeley Italic
By Naomi FRIEDMAN TIMES EDITOR IN CHIEF
M
arcus Walter Williams was born on July 2, 1864 the youngest son of Marcus and Mary Jane Williams in Boonville. The family expected to call him Marcus, however, he never wanted to be called anything but Walter.
TITLE Paragraph style align right; 10 pt. leading; space after paragraph 14 pt. Character style 8 pt. Berkeley
BODY COPY Paragraph style justified; auto leading; indent first line of paragraph 1 pica; drop cap (1 character, 3 lines) Character style body copy 10 pt. Berkeley Character style initial letter 10 pt. Futura Bold; shade 30% black
Complexity also possible with styles
C
omplex sheets need not be restricted to simple body copy and captions alone. They can be quite complex. For example, the above copy had a number of styles including one paragraph style for the byline, one for the title, one for the intro paragraph and one for the body text. It also included a character styles for the first two words of the byline and one for the initial letter. As with any style, the trick is knowing what you want the text to look like before you define the style. With more complex styles, this often means creating a mock-up or first issue and then defining the styles based on what finally worked. For example, a page designer may spec type in Futura ExtraBold but then decide once the type is actually in ExtraBold that that’s too dark. Futura Bold works better. But once you find something that works, define the style and stick with it. As designers get more comfortable with working designs, they’ll realize how style sheets help them Summer 2000
Team......................... Us.............Them Anderson........................ 24................36 Georgetown.................... 18................20 Leander.......................... 6..................24 Bastrop........................... 30................18 Crockett.......................... 18................9 Austin............................. 40................23
TABS
PARAGRAPH RULES
Anything that’s accessible in the Paragraph Attributes (QuarkXPress) or Paragraph dialog boxes (PageMaker) can be defined as part of a style including paragraph rules. For this byline, a 1 pt. ruleline is automatically placed below the first line in the byline. It would have been easy enough to make this a 30% red rule line indented one pica from the right – all automatically using the style sheets.
concentrate on the design and not the minutae. And for reporters who have to design their own pages, it helps them concentrate on good reporting, writing and editing, not what font body copy is supposed to be in.
It’s also possible to set tabs as part of a style. This is particularly useful in scoreboards and in the index. The easiest way to include tabs is to first make one scoreboard or section of the index look right by setting the tabs manually. In this case, two tabs were set, one at 6 picas and one at 9 picas both with a dotted leader. So that all scoreboard looked alike, click in one line of the scoreboard. (Don’t highlight the entire thing since the first line is in a different type style resulting in “mixed styles” and an error message.) Then go to through the define styles procedure. Notice that when you click in a paragraph, PageMaker retains the formatting information of that type when you select Define Styles… from the Type menu. Quark also retains the formatting so when you define the Character and Paragraph styles, you can quickly define them to look like the type on the screen.
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