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• • May 11, 2016 at 12:40 pm #84801
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    In his excellent course on Typography Nigel French suggests that we avoid autoleading. I understand why and so wanted to do this. However although Nigel describes where the value is held in preferences he does not say how to turn it off; rather he suggests ‘avoiding’ it. Is this because it cannot be turned off? And if it can’t does ‘avoid’ mean setting it for every paragraph – no it can’t be that as Nigel is very good at making efficiency suggestions and would not introduce a huge overhead.

    Apologies to Nigel if he did explain but I just didn’t get it.

    Thank you………………….. liz

  • May 11, 2016 at 1:01 pm #84807
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Of course as soon as I ask a question I find the answer – just like going to the doctor when you immediately feel better before you see him! In case anyone searches for this in future I will describe how for the record.

    When using Styles:

    In the Paragraph Style, Basic Character Formats, Leading: make sure the value is not in brackets, if it is auto leading applies. Consciously choose the value and the brackets will disappear showing that autoleading is off.

    When using In-Line Formatting:

    Check the leading value in the ribbon, this is in the Paragraph Formatting Controls and has the two ‘A’s on top of each other with the double-headed arrow beside it, if you hover it will show ‘leading’ in the tooltip. Put the cursor in the paragraph you want to check, look at the leading value in the ribbon; if the value is in brackets, as with the Paragraph Style, it means autoleading is switched on for the paragraph in question – if you display the selection dropdown you will see Auto is selected in the list. You can turn it off by selecting a specific value.

    Hope this helps someone in the future,

    liz

  • May 11, 2016 at 4:59 pm #84846
    Ari Singer

    Member

    I don’t understand why using auto-leading should be avoided. Yes, every typeface needs its own leading and the default auto-leading won’t do, but for that I define in the paragraph style (under Justification › Auto Leading) the auto-leading percentage that I like for that particular font. So that when I decide to change the size of the text, the leading will mirror that immediately with the appropriate percentage.

  • May 11, 2016 at 7:17 pm #84847
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    It’s an excellent question and not immediately obvious. However, the main reason not to use Auto leading in InDesign is that each character has its own leading. So if you make a single character in the middle of a paragraph larger (for example 14 point instead of 12), then the leading changes for the entire line. Auto leading means “use whatever the leading is for the largest character on that line.”

    Yes, the opposite of “auto leading” is not to turn it off, but rather just to apply “absolute” leading — meaning, an actual leading value, like 15 pt.

    But Ari’s point about a leading that would change appropriately as the text gets larger is a good one. QuarkXPress has a % leading feature, which is kind of like Auto. But in XPress, leading is always the same throughout the paragraph. (You can change that in ID, though.)

    More on that here: https://creativepro.com/reigning-in-rogue-leading.php

    • May 11, 2016 at 7:41 pm #84848
      Ari Singer

      Member

      You can have the cake and eat it too.

      I always define the auto leading percentage in the paragraph style settings so that when I decide to change the size of the paragraph it adjusts accordingly. But in the case when I want to change the size of a particular character(s) in the paragraph, instead of overriding it locally (which is a typography sin…) I apply to it an appropriate character style with a lower leading value than the paragraph’s. So unless these characters take up an entire line, the leading stays the same in the entire paragraph.

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