Type Basics: The Paragraph Palette

Nested by default with the Character palette, the Paragraph palette can be shown and hidden using either the button in the options bar, the command in the Window menu, or with Command-T (Mac) Control-T (Windows) while editing or inputting type. This palette and its menu govern the appearance of a body of type. Photoshop considers a "paragraph" to be any amount of text followed by a return. Point type that appears on a single line without a return at the end is considered to be a paragraph for Photoshop's alignment options.

All of the options in the paragraph palette can be set individually for each paragraph. The entire paragraph need not be selected, simply click with a type tool in a paragraph to indicate that it's the target of the changes. You can highlight one or more characters from several paragraphs to select them all. If you don't click in the text, Photoshop will assume that changes made in the Paragraph palette should be applied to the entire type layer. If no type layer is active in the Layers palette, changes made will be used the next time the Type tool is used.

Across the top of the palette are seven buttons that govern alignment and justification of paragraphs. What they do to a paragraph of text is apparent from the button icons. The first three buttons are alignment, arranging the text to have an even margin on the left, have each line centered, or have an even margin to the right. In each case, the text remains within the boundaries of its rectangle. The criteria by which Photoshop justifies are set using the a dialog box opened through the Paragraph palette's menu.

The four remaining buttons at the top of the Paragraph palette determine justification. Justified text has even margins on both the left and right. These four options govern the last line of a paragraph. When the final line is not full, that is it does not naturally stretch from left to right margins, Photoshop offers several options. The final line can be aligned left, centered, aligned right, of justified. To justify the final line, space is added between words and, if necessary, letters. Should the final line be substantially shorter than the others, the amount of white space added can be unsightly and interfere with legibility. In this image, the same text is shown with Justify Last Left and with Justify Last All. Note the difference in the final line of each paragraph.

The second section of the Paragraph palette governs indentation. Entire paragraphs can be indented either to the left or the right or both (the upper pair of buttons) and you can specify separately indentation for the first line of a paragraph (the lower button in the middle section of the palette). By default, the unit of measure for indentation is points. That can be changed in Photoshop's preferences under Units & Rulers. (The Paragraph palette uses the unit of measure specified under Type.)

TIP: If you indent an entire paragraph, then indent the first line with a negative number, you can create a paragraph that appears to have all lines after the first indented to the right.

Also available in the Paragraph palette is paragraph spacing. Using the lower set of buttons in the paragraph palette, you can specify spacing before a paragraph (left), or space can be added after a paragraph (right). Like indentation, the Type unit of measure preference is used.

At the bottom of the palette is a checkbox that turns on and off hyphenation in the paragraph. Like the other Paragraph palette options, Hyphenation can be set on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis. Specific rules for hyphenation are set using the Paragraph palette's menu command of the same name (discussed in the following section).

THE PARAGRAPH PALETTE MENU COMMANDS
Several commands appear in the Paragraph palette's menu. Like most palettes, the top command allows you to add the palette to the Palette Well. (Remember that the Palette Well is not available unless the monitor's resolution is set to display more than 800x600 pixels.)

Roman hanging punctuation is an advanced typesetting option. With paragraph type, certain punctuation marks fall outside the margins to the left and right, creating a "cleaner" look to the margins.

The Justification dialog box controls how Photoshop justifies paragraphs. Making changes here allows you to make tiny adjustments to how Photoshop spaces words and letters to create full justification.

Word Spacing establishes minimum, maximum, and target amounts for space between words. 100% represents the font's built-in spacing plus any changes you've made to tracking in the Character palette. Values can range from 0% to 133%

Letter Spacing determines how much change Photoshop can make to spaces between letters within words. Justifying relies on letter spacing only after word spacing has been applied and only if necessary. While percent is shown in the dialog box, the unit of measure is actually fractions of an em.

nputting 0% in all three fields turns off letter spacing.

Glyph Scaling, a method of last resort, actually changes the width of individual characters to create justification. Sacrificing the appearance of the letters for the appearance of the margins is rarely a good idea. A value of 100% represents the original width of each character.

At the bottom of the dialog box you can specify what percentage of a font's size will be used for the Auto setting in the Leading pop-up menu of the Character palette.

The Hyphenation dialog box, opened with the Hyphenation command of the paragraph palette's menu, control what rules Photoshop applies when breaking words at the end of a line. Photoshop uses the assigned dictionary to determine where a word will be hyphenated, these settings determine if a word will be hyphenated at all.

The Hyphenation Limit controls how many consecutive lines can end with hyphens. The Hyphenation Zone establishes a distance from the right margin in which a words will not be hyphenated. For example, if the preceding word enters the designated zone, the following word will be moved in its entirety to the following line. Likewise, if a word to be broken does not have a dictionary-defined break within the zone, the word remains unhyphenated.

If you uncheck the box at the bottom of the dialog box, words that begin with a capital letter cannot be hyphenated. This includes proper nouns, as well as words that start sentences. (The possibility that a word is long enough to both start a sentence and require hyphenation in Photoshop indicates very narrow columns or very long words.) This setting has no effect on type set in all caps or entered with the CapsLock key locked down.

The difference between the Adobe Single-line Composer and the Adobe Multi-line Composer is the approach to hyphenation. Single-line looks at one line and decides the appropriate hyphenation, then moves to the next line. Multi-line examines all of the selected text before making decisions, which usually produces fewer word breaks and a generally more-pleasing look to the text.

Perhaps the most useful of all the menu commands, Reset Paragraph restores the paragraph palette to its default settings.