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Made on a Macintosh using Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia DreamWeaver.

Vertically Justifying a Column of Type in PageMaker

by Peter C.S. Adams

You can do it in Quark. You can do it in InDesign, Adobe's PageMaker killer. Heck, you can even do it in Canvas! Why can't you vertically justify a column of type in PageMaker?

By that I mean, of course, that you should be able to make the top of the text touch the top of the vertical space, then, by adjusting the leading, make the bottom of the text touch the bottom of the vertical space. In other words, exactly the same as justifying text left and right, but adjusting leading instead of character and word spacing.

First, a caveat: Unlike the serif-sans serif debate, I think there's little question that too much leading affects readability. Many designers love vertical justification, but I've never met a typographer who didn't shudder at the thought.However, I find it an effective way to set off some text from the rest of the body (call out, sidebar, etc.) without altering type face or size. I don't do it much though. Like pink Piegnot, a little goes a long way!

Now, for the tip. I don't know of a way to do this automatically, but you can do it through a process called "feathering." This means selecting all the text and changing the leading by some small increment until it fills the space you require. You can do this the smart way or the "don't have a calculator handy" way:

Smart Way: Measure the height of the space (use points for measurement), measure the height of the text block, and calculate the difference. Or just draw a box that fills the empty space and watch the control palette to see how high it it, then delete the box. Once you know how many points of space you need to fill, count the number of lines of text you have and divide. Then select the text and add the
resulting fraction to the leading. For instance, if you have 24 lines of text set at 12/15 and that leaves one inch (72 points) of space to fill, set the 24 lines of type at 12/18 (18=15+72/24).
No Calculator Way: Select the text and then click the "increment leading" button in the control palette until the last line of text disappears (assuming the frame is set to align top), then decrement once to make it reappear. Dull, but reliable, and you can do it before your morning coffee has taken effect.

PDS Associates decided enough was enough when they tried to do a 92 page book involving vertical justification on each page and wrote a script to automate vertical justification. According to their web site: "There has been a constant stream of complaints over the years that PageMaker doesn't support vertical justification. Purists point to its powerful Align to Grid feature that is the complete antithesis of vertical justification. [But] I was faced with a 92 page directory [and] the thought of doing those calculations over and over through 92 pages was enough to send me to the script editor. If you can't wait to get started, then grab the script and start working with it. But, be sure you read it first--especially the comments--because you have to customize it to work with your document."

Forewarned is forearmed: vertical justification is rarely a good idea, and when it is, it may be too much trouble to implement! :->

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