Hi there! In this video we’ll be talking about using justification with our paragraph
in InDesign, so let’s get started.
For justification, if you place your cursor to one of the paragraphs, and then go to the
paragraph formatting controls, and click the justification button, it will apply justification
to only that paragraph, so to apply justification to the entire text box, select the entire
text, and then hit the justification button.
Since justification pushes and pulls letters, or words, by adjusting spaces in between,
you’ll find certain lines with some ugly spaces, so although from both sides, the paragraphs
look neat, but the gaps within, make them look weird.
InDesign does offer options to control these spaces to some extent, and for that, you’ll
need to select the text, and then go to the burger menu on the top right corner of the
toolbar above, and select ‘justification.’
Now from the popup menu, try to adjust the letter spacing, so if I enter -2 for minimum,
you’ll find the text adjusting itself. Let’s now add 3 percent for maximum, and see the
result. You will find some sort of movement in the text. Let’s do a -5 in the minimum
letter spacing, and you’ll find a lot of spaces in between have gone, but at the same
time, you’ll find some of the lines with very tight spaces. So basically, you’ll
have to strike a balance here, and decide how much of weird spaces, or tight spaces
in your lines, you are happy with, and I’m sure the letter spacing option will make your
paragraphs look a lot better than the normal justification settings. Another thing to keep
in mind is to set the ‘composer’ setting to ‘Adobe Paragraph Composer’, as it adjusts
letter spacing and word spacing to achieve the best look for the paragraph as a whole.
There is another setting that shows you visually, the degree of violation your justification
settings, have led your paragraphs to, and for that you need to go to ‘preferences’,
and then ‘composition.’ In here you’ll find ‘H & J Violations’, which means hyphenation
and justification violations. If you check the box, and hit okay, you will find some
of your text highlighted with various intensity of yellow color. The more intense the color,
the bigger is the violation. Although it doesn’t affect the text, or you, as a composer, but
it’s just a way of InDesign telling you how much of a change your justification settings
have brought about. To deactivate this visual setting, go back to preferences, and then
composition, and uncheck the ‘H & J Violations’ box, and the highlighter shall be gone.
Alright guys! That concludes our session, and I’m going to see you in the next one,
in just a bit. Good bye!