Adjusting Text Appearance in Text Frames

Although most adjustments to text frames ‚ such as frame size , shape, and location ‚ affect the layout, not the text, there are several text-frame attributes that do affect your text's appearance.

Setting text frame options

Most of these adjustments reside in the Text Frame Options dialog box, shown in Figure 15-14. You open the dialog box by selecting a frame and choosing Object ‚ Text Frame Options, or pressing z +B or Ctrl+B.

Figure 15-14: The Text Frame Options dialog box.

Cross-Reference ‚

Chapter 10 covers the creation, modification, and deletion of text frames in more detail. Chapter 16 covers the Column settings in the Text Frame Options dialog box. The rest of Part IV covers formatting text.

These four sections of the Text Frame Options dialog box control text appearance:

The Inset Spacing section creates an internal margin in the frame, putting space between the frame edge and the text. You can set the Top, Bottom, Left, and Right settings separately.
The First Baseline section lets you determine where the baseline for the first line of text in the frame rests. (The baseline is the invisible line on which characters rest and through which descenders such as the lower portions of letters like p and g "poke through.") You have five options in the Offset pop-up menu, for which the use of each depends on your aesthetic goals:
- Ascent puts the baseline as close to the top of the frame as possible, so the tops of characters graze the text frame's top (or the margin you set in the Inset Spacing section). This is the default.
- Cap Height adjusts the baseline so that it is a cap height's distance from the frame top. The cap height is the height of a capital letter C , but some fonts have characters that extend above that location, and these fonts will have characters that rise above the top of the frame if you choose Cap Height here.
- Leading places the baseline from the frame's top in the same amount as the text's leading. If leading is set to 13 points, for example, the baseline will be 13 points from the top of the frame, no matter if that makes characters rise above the frame top (such as if the text size is set at 15 points) or causes a gap (such as if the text size is set at 9 points).
- x Height adjusts the baseline so that it is an x height's distance from the frame top. The x height is the height of a lowercase letter x . Selecting x Height ensures that capital letters and letters with ascenders (such as d and h ) will poke through the top of the frame.
- Fixed uses the value in the Min. field to position the baseline. You would use this if you want the baseline for all text frames to be the same no matter what the text size and appearance is. That's pretty rare ‚ standard practice is to have text positioned from the frame top relative to its size, which the other Offset options essentially do.
You can override any of the settings above by specifying an amount in the Min. field. The Min. field tells InDesign that the baseline must be at least a specific distance from the frame top. InDesign will first try to position the baseline based on the Offset amount, but if that is closer to the frame top than the Min. setting, the Min. setting will prevail.
The Vertical Justification section controls the placement of text vertically in a text frame, similar right-, center-, or left-aligning a paragraph horizontally. The Top, Center, and Bottom options move the text to the top, the center, or bottom of the text frame. The Justify option is a bit different: It permits variable spacing between paragraphs, so the text fits the full depth of the frame. If you choose Justify, the leading within paragraphs is unaffected, but InDesign adds as much space as needed between each paragraph ‚ up to the value set in the Paragraph Spacing Limit field ‚ to ensure that the last line of text in the frame at the bottom of the frame. Because the default is 0p, text won't be vertically justified even if you choose Justify ‚ you must also increase the Paragraph Spacing Limit value. Figure 15-15 shows some examples of this.

Figure 15-15: Examples of vertical justification, showing how the spacing changes as the number of lines changes. (Normal, top-aligned text is at left.)
The Ignore Text Wrap option, if checked, lets text in the text frame overprint another object, even if text wrap is set for that object. You would use this rarely, such as when you have a headline you want to overprint a graphic around which body text wraps.

Scaling text with the mouse

The other frame-oriented action you can take that affects text is resizing (scaling). Normally, when you resize a text frame, the text size is unaffected, and the text simply reflows in the new frame's dimensions. But you can also have the text resized along the same percentages as the frame itself. Here's how: Hold z or Ctrl when dragging a frame edge with the Selection tool. This will resize the text the same percentage horizontally or vertically as the frame is resized. (This also works for grouped text frames.)

New Feature ‚

The ability to resize text when resizing a text frame is new to InDesign CS.

Note ‚

Because these actions distort the text's appearance, you'll rarely use them. However, they can be useful when working on titles in creative materials such as ads where some distortion can bring an unusual but attractive look to text.