Paragraph Formatting - II (PageMaker)

Tips on Formatting:

On a professionally produced page, all textual and graphic elements have depths that are numerically related. They are multiple of a predetermined magic number. If the magic number is 12, all headlines, graphic boxes, and other page elements have depths of 12, 24, 36, 48 and so on. This magic number is the size of the leading for your body text. Do not think your page’s dimension in terms of inches or points. Instead, think of your page as being divided in increments that match your magic number. Designers refer to this as a leading grid. When all your elements are multiples of your magic number, something magical happens – the baseline in one column is exactly line up with the baseline in the adjacent column. Your top and bottom margins are key players in your leading grid, although they do not have to be multiples of your leading. Your goal is to get the active area of your page (your page size minus the margins) to be a multiple of your leading. The exact margin size is the amount left over after subtracting the active page area from the page size. Consider the following example for this purpose:

Step 1

Determine the leading for your body text. It should be a round number that is easy to work with, such as 14 (not 14.4).

Step 2

Decide approximately what margin you want. For instance, you may want about 4 – pica top and bottom margins for your publication.

Step 3

Subtract both of these margins (8 picas) from the vertical page size (51 picas, say) to get the current active page size (43 picas). A landscape letter – size page is 51 picas high – 8.5 inches multiplied by 6 picas per inch.

Step 4

Convert the active page size from picas to points by multiplying 43 picas by 12 to get 516 points.

Step 5

Divide the page size calculated in step 4 by your leading. If the paper size is 516 points and your leading is 14, the result is 36.86. If the number of lines does not result in an integer, continue with steps 6 through 8, else you are done.

Step 6

Take the integer of the number of lines calculated in step 4(36) and multiply it by your leading (14) to get an active page size that is a multiple of your magic number. Your active page size in this example is 504 points. To convert this number back to picas, divide it by 12 (42 picas).

Step 7

Subtract the active page size (42 picas) from the total page size (51 picas) to get the total available for top and bottom margins (9 picas).

Step 8

Divide the total margin (9 picas) by two to get the value of each of the margins (4.5 picas).