Optical margin alignment

I'm using Win Indesign CC 2014.
I would like one paragraph to have optical margin alignment. But I would like all the rest to not have it.
It seems as though if I turn it on, that it applies optical margin alignment to the whole document.
Is there any way to have it apply to just selected paragraphs, or have I just missed something?
Thanks,
Phil

There is no way to select a single paragraph and apply Optical Margin Alignment to it, OMA is a story-wide setting.
That said, funny enough (if you are inclined to think of such weird "design" decisions as "funny", ha ha), the reverse is possible: a paragraph and/or paragraph style can be set to ignore OMA. Look in the paragraph/style Alignment subdialog, there should be a checkbox.

Similar Messages

Optical margin alignment not in Indesign cc

When I open Story it is blank. There is no box to activate optical margin alignment. And there does not seem to be a way to activate it in Preferences. Are other users having the same problem or is this just me?
James

Try: Troubleshooting 101: Replace, or "trash" your InDesign preferences
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526990

Paragraph-level Optical Margin Alignment

InDesign CS2 (4.0.5) on Mac (10.4.11) - shortly upgrading to CS4
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I can't figure out the sense of having Optical Margin Alignment at "Story" level.
I have a layout with a story that runs across several pages. Within that story (and in any given text frame), I have large headlines, medium-sized introductory paragraphs and/or pull quotes, and the body text. There appears to be no way of setting a type size to control the optical alignment for each paragraph. If I set the type size (in Story options) to the size of the body copy (say, 9pt), it isn't enough to make a difference to the headlines (say, 24pt). Obviously if I set the type size to 24pt it makes a total mess of the body copy. How many layouts only have one type size per story? Surely this hanging punctuation option needs to be at para level?

Can you switch off Optical alignment in the paragraph styles in CS2
or only CS3 and above?
Even still, I think this is worthy of a feature (amendment) request.
I'm not surprised it has been mentioned before!
Having used Quark for years, I found InDesign so much better from
version 2 (pre-CS) onwards, but this is just frustrating and so not
like Adobe, whose products I generally rate as well-rounded and well
conceived. Oh well, guess I'll just have to do my hanging
quote marks manually… until CS5?

Optical Margin Alignment in Paragraph Styles?

Hello,
I'm currently redesigning a newsletter for a company. I have been setting up various Paragraph Styles for different areas of text. Is there any way that I can use the Optical Margin Alignment tool in a Paragraph Style so that all text applied to that style uses the same Optical Margin Alignment setting? I'd rather not have to manually select every single piece of text and set it that way.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Laurence

Hi Steve,
Yes, I thought that would be the case. I've read everywhere that it can only be "ignored" in Paragraph Styles. I'm still learning InDesign in some respect, so could you explain to me what you mean when you say "at the level of a story"?
Also, is there any rule of thumb for using the Optical Margin Alignment with text? Or is it a simple case of trial and error until you get good results?

Possible to do optical character alignment?

Is it possible to do optical character alignment?
I am used to doing this in InDesign - wondering if there is a comparable feature in Pages.
See this article for explanation:
http://www.cambooth.net/archives/328

Hi Matthew,
Feature not available. Not surprising, considering the difference in price between Adobe Indesign and Pages.
With some work, you might be able to produce a similar effect manually, using a workaround patterned on the one described in that article.
Regards,
Barry

Why my tablix shows in design time perfect right margin alignment with the body right margin, but at runtime it diminishes its width?

This is turning me crazy as I can't figure out how to solve this annoying problem. Could somebody help me?
I'm using Visual Studio 2010 Report Designer.
Thanks
Codelines

Thanks for the answer
U. PARANTHAMAN but, if I do that and a field needs to grow vertically to wrap text wouldn't the text be truncated?
Codelines

How to align/flush completely to the right margin or text frame?

Is this possible? I'm trying to align the Standing Head to the edge of the frame.

Is the colored background simply the color of your text frame? If so, no, you cannot move text out at the right hand side (on the left side, inserting a thin space before the first character and using a negative kern value works -- but not on the right side). Optical Margin Alignment does something, but it appears to move the right-aligned text to the left instead ...
If you want to be able to apply a paragraph style and forget about it, you will have to separate the background color and the text frame itself. Then you can make the text frame just a bit wider, and set the right margin of the "regular" text to that same bit.
You can also put the header into a separate frame and make it an anchored object. More work, harder to adjust, same effect -- but you don't need to resize your text frame.

How can I align a character exactly flush with the right side of a text box?

I'd like to automatically align some text so it touches the right side of its text box exactly for all characters ("Optical Margin Alignment" doesn't work). Figure-1 shows the default behavior for right-aligned text. Figure-2 shows what I want it to look like. Since these characters are inputs from a large Data Merge, manually adjusting each instance is not a practical solution.
Selecting the "Align Left Edge" checkbox in "Drop Caps and Nested Styles" is exactly the kind of behavior I'm looking for, except it needs to be the "Right Edge" not the "Left Edge".
Figure-1: This is the default behavior for right-aligned text.
Figure-2: The is what I want the result to look like.

Rob, thanks for the link with the thread. At least I know I'm not missing some obvious function somewhere.
Olfar, I follow what you did with "Indent to Here" and the Hair Space, and I understand how to use tracking to manually align the second line, but I don't know much about grep styles, so I didn't follow that part. Does the technique you used work for all characters? For instance, if you replaced the "1" with a "7", would it automatically align the rightmost part of the "7" with the "N"? Also, I need something that works with double digit numbers, and I don't think the Hair-Space-and-Tracking trick is going to work in those cases, but I could be wrong.
Thanks.

Big and small text alignment

Why doesn't InDesign align text to the border of the textframe?
Especially with big and small text in the same textframe, the gaps before the text are scaled too making text optically not aligned at all.
Optical margin alignment helps a bit, but not good enough.
Am i overlooking something?
Still working in CS3 btw.

Ok knowing the right term "side bearing", i did some google searching and stumbled upon this topic at indesignsecrets:
http://indesignsecrets.com/removing-space-along-left-edge.php
There's a link to a script from Dave Saunders that aligns the letters optically to the left. Tested and works! InDesigns own optical margin alignment should be turned of though. I immediately assigned a shortcut to this great script.
PS: Concerning the "why is side bearing split into left and right": i guess for example a letter 'D' for example shouldn't have equal side bearings because of the rounding to right.

How do I ensure the words are aligned

Dear All,
I am having trouble actually ensuring the words are all left aligned in my address block.
Any ideas of how I can actually do this?
Here is the screen shot of a sample. I need the "I" and the "1" and the "L" all aligned exactly.
Any ideas?

Look at "Optical Margin Alignment" which works for the entire frame or story. Window -> Type and Tables -> Story
The words really are left-aligned, according to (I think) the side bearing defined in the font. I bet if you zoom out, or look at the printed version, the difference you're seeing zoomed in onscreen and next to guides will be much reduced.
In some cases (poorly designed fonts, families from different foundries used together with very different design assumptions) I've had to use very small thin spaces to make it work visually.

HTML/CSS match to InDesign layout

Hello,
I have been given the task of taking an InDesign layout from CS6, and building it in HTML/CSS. The challenging part is that it is required to be 1:1 pixel perfect. When I open it in Google Chrome–which is going to be the standard browser it’s opened in–the font raggs differently.
When I overlay a PNG of the HTML site, and a PNG from the InDesign file it is no where close to pixel-perfect. The text wrapping differently is the main issue at hand. I have tried every CSS hack possible to adjust letter-spacing and word-spacing, I've also explored Google Fonts to attempt to get a better match.
Does anyone have any experience with a similar ask? In CS6 you can’t specify type pixels, I’m not sure it would matter if you could, because it seems that InDesign is using it’s own conversion for what it considers a pixel.
Please help!!!

Agreed, it's way too optimistic. InDesign is a typographic design application, under development since 1999. Already in its very first version, its type engine came "fully grown and armed, with a shout", supporting enough advanced features to squash all but the very stubbornest competition (I'm looking at you, TeX).
HTML/CSS, on the other hand, has had problems displaying "plain text" since its very beginnings. Only the very latest version of CSS finally addresses some typographic features (probably unnecessary to add, but anyway: with mixed results for different browsers).
" ..it seems that InDesign is using [its] own conversion for what it considers a pixel", you bet it does. After all, there was a web crowd that outright demanded "pixels" to be a measurement unit in InDesign. Adobe did a have a stab at adding pixels, and if one would ask me, they did it the wrong way. But that's no fault in InDesign. ID has its roots firmly in the "real world", that is, you can design a document with a precision right up to the wavelength of visible light; and ID will happily produce output for it. Your "pixel", on the other -- Darker -- Side, "is" not a real thing. It has no width or height. If you think it does, it goes only for your screen. You may say, "but if necesasry I can hold a magnifier to my screen and count the itty bitty lights!" What if you do so, and discover that your screen does not consist of square pixels, but round ones, or hexagonal, or elongated rectangles? And any measurement would only be value for just your screen. What about mine, your bosses', or your client's?
Following John's advice, here is a list of features you would need to switch off (as most are enabled by default) before you can even think of mimicking ID's sophisticated text engine in HTML:
ligatures
alternate characters
real small capitals
tabular or oldstyle figures
.. wait -- better switch off *all* OTF features
Paragraph composer. Use the dumb One Line At A Time And We'll See How Far We Get Composer.
Language based hyphenation.
Minimum/Optimal/Maximum Word Spacing (CSS must be using this internally, else it could not show justified text; however, I don't think you can set its parameters)
Letter Spacing and Glyph Scaling (although to be fair, these seem to be already off by default).
~16 decimals of precision for every object, line width, text size, spacing, et cetera
any real-world based measurement unit.
I probably forgot a few too.
--- add.
Advanced character/class kerning
Optical kerning (not enabled by default)
-- add2.
Balance Ragged Lines (off by default; but you can't use it)
Optical Margin Alignment (as above)
Align to Baseline grid
last line indent
Align to spine
justify last line (can only be achieved with span/div tricks)
tabs
about all internal hyphenation settings (CSS allows 'none', 'manual', and 'auto')
live text color outline (I may be mistaken, but I bet if it were possible literally everybody would be using it by now -- just like the dreaded "blink" tag did, before it was deemed illegal by federal law)
skewed text. I know, nobody with a grain of sense uses it in ID.[*] Still, you can't do it in CSS so I'm gonna list it anyway.
[*] Except myself, by the way. But I don't use it willy-nilly, only after exhausting all the good and the bad options; then yes, I go for the Ugly look.
Message was edited by: [Jongware]
Message was edited by: [Jongware]

Truely lining up text to the left

I noticed that the paragraphs that start with "A" hang a bit off the edge of the left side of my text box. And the text in the line below is ever so slightely indented from the line. How do I make it all really line up to be left-justified? I'm using CS4 on a Mac. Thanks!
PS I tried to find the answer on my own, but I had no luck. I think I don't know the right terms.

Does the text frame have an Optical Margin Alignment applied?

PM 7 download question

Greetings: I retired a few years ago. Used Pagemaker happily for about a decade.
Now I would like to start using again. You can guess why. Problem is I have PM 7 on my old PC
, but now not sure I can transfer to current PC. I might also want to upgrade to InDesign.
Problem is Adobe needs serial #, etc., and I have to physical record in my possession. I'
m on the level and am not trying to get over on Adobe. Any thoughts? Sure would appreciate it.
Thanks. Jack.

Firstly, you may find something here:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/706590?tstart=0
Secondly, PM vs InDesign. It depends on how you work and what you're designing. ID has the features on PM and then some! So you can use ID just like PM if you wish. Or you can take advantage of the more advanced tools. However, the real beauty of ID is what lies under the hood.
Take type for example. ID handles text much better than PM ever could for a start. There are just a lot more typographical enhancements such as optical margin alignment, FULL Opentype support, Paragrapgh Composer and so on.
Again, looking at imported graphics, if using Illustrator and Photoshop with, PM one has to save Illustrator files as EPS and Photoshop files as TIFF. ID can import NATIVE Illustrator Ai and Photoshop files with noe conversion neeeded.
And of course, PM needs Acrobat distiller to create PDF files. ID can create PDF files from within the actual program. There are many, many more differences besides the few I've given above.
ID does have a steep learning curve. However, if you can use PM you're half way there.
Thirdly, ID CS3 and esp CS4 and CS5 work VERY well with Win 7 including 64 bit flavours.
Hope this helps!
Ian

Hanging punctuation problems

I have been using a paragraph style that uses a nested style and tab for taking notes, indicating the page number and then the note (see below)
My probelm is that for some reason, punctuation on the first line do not hang properly. Optical margin alignment works fine for the rest of the lines.
I've actually had this issue in other documents that don't use tabs as well.
Anyone have any insight on how to fix this?
Thanks,
Kate

I presume the paragraph style also has a left inident to match your tab and a hanging indent for the first line. Your punctuation on the first line is not the first character in the line and is not on the edge, so there is no reason why it WOULD hang.
The only way I can think of off the top of my head to achive the look you want is to use a an anchored object for the number and make the paragraph indent even. The anchor point probably also cannot be the first character in the line.
Well, just thought of something else that looks like it will work, if you have CS4. Forget thet tab after the number and replace it with a forced line break. Create a character style that changes the leading to 0, and use line styles in your paragraph style to apply none through the first line, then the zero-lead style through one line. You still need the paragraph indent and hanging first line, but since the punctuation is now technically on the second line it should hang.

Roman Hanging Punctuation

I'm using CS 5.5 (7.5.3), Roman hanging punctuation does not appear in my paragragh menu. Can anyone tell me where to find it?
Thank you in advance for any help.

Unfortunately Optical Margin Alignment is no paragraph style property or even better: a property that could adapt to a combination of font style and point size. One application would be aligning different font styles or weights.
Problem:
A workaround with two text frames, but still a problem, if you consider the column span feature:
Uwe

Optical margin alignment

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