When we watch the screen as we type we see the characters appear almost as soon as we type them. This is nice, but an explanation of what exactly is happening will make you aware of a very serious problem that affects the way your type fits into your type box. The answer is the character cell. Quark, and other programs, do not place the type on your screen, it places a character cell at the cursor location. In the character cell, the system (Mac or Win) will place the character according to the requirements set forth by the designers of the typeface taking into account any modifications you request through Quark. Finally, to confuse matters further, Quark does not show you the character cell but instead shows you the character generated by the system. The result is that the concept of the character cell is invisible as you work leaving you to wonder why your type isn't always the way it should be.
In Quark you don't actually place type characters on screen, your can only establish and manipulate character cells on your layout. When you type a character, Quark refers to the font to determine the size of the character cell, especially in width for the height is determined by the desired point size. Quark then looks at any other typographic adjustments you may have requested such as horizontal scale and proportionally scales the width of the character cell. This horizontal value will be passed onto the system so that the correct width character can be scaled and inserted into the cell. If you are using tracking or kerning, Quark moves the cells more or less relative to each other according to your desired settings. With tracking, cells may have an extra amount of space placed between them or they may overlap by the certain amount you choose. When the characters are inserted into their cells they visually appear to be closer or further apart than usual. This helps you determine how much tracking or kerning you want. First type the characters giving Quark time to establish the locations of the cells on screen. Then you must wait for the system to interpret the requirements from Quark and place the characters in their respective cells (it really doesn't take all that long). At this time you see the characters and decide what must be done to make them perfect. Select and input the proper adjustments for kerning or tracking on the Measurements Palette. Quark then updates the position of the character cells and passes this information onto the system which draws the characters in new locations. The result, you will very quickly see on screen hopefully giving you almost instant gratification.
At far left is a word of Hobo showing the approximate (very, very close but not always perfect) character cells because the type is selected. In Quark, the only evidence of the existence of the character cell is when you select type. Notice at left that there is a lot of space above and below the word Type. This is typical of a font leaving us to wonder what all this excess space is to be used for. Further, near right, we change the font to Comic Sans. The point size is exactly the same for both illustrations! The selection areas are not the same height. If the height of the character cell is supposed to be the same as the point size, there is definitely a problem somewhere!
Character Cells
Each character of each font resides in a character cell. This cell is adjusted by the font designer so the character fits neatly. The font designer also adjusts the character cells of adjacent characters so they look nice together. It's all in the process of making a font. The result is that each character and its cell are painstakingly balanced. If not, when you set type there may be too much or too little space between certain character pairs. The characters may not be the right size, they may be too wide, too narrow or they might not line up on the baseline. These are all signs of a poor font (poor fonts are generally fonts that have not been painstakingly adjusted enough!).
At left is the cap T from Hobo, the typeface used above, left selected in Quark. The top line is the top of the character cell and the bottom line is the bottom. The left and right vertical lines mark the width of the character. The other horizontal line is the baseline (some characters with descenders will have image below this line). That reference point marker on the left edge of the baseline is the exact point at which Quark uses to align the left edge of the character cell and all calculations are taken from this point.
There is no fixed rule on how a type designer should fit the characters into the cells. On our Hobo example, the character is centered left and right. But what determines up and down positioning? It's hard to say, for the designers will make this determination as they assemble the font and each font can be different. The Hobo design from different font manufacturers may place it differently creating serious problems if different brands of the same font are substituted. Therefore, there is a chance that each font may respond differently relative to the character cell.
When the character is placed in the cell there's some space on the left and right. This character is not right against the edge of the cell because the space is exactly half the amount needed for inter-character space, the visually pleasing space between characters. In our Hobo example, the character extends very close to the sides of the cell. Perhaps because the type designers expect you to place a lower case letter next to it such as the y in our example above. No tracking or kerning was done to those two examples. This space on the left is why your first character in a text box doesn't seem to be right against the box edge and appears annoyingly indented.
Character cell problems
Perhaps all would be well if the character filled the cell giving us the comforting knowledge that they are actually one in the same. However, such is not the case. Notice the extra space above and below the character. This space is included as part of your type size for the height of the character cell is the point size you request. If you change the point size, Quark will resize the character cell and then the system will recalculate the type character to fit the new cell size. But it is this extra space above and below that we should be concerned about. This makes it very difficult to place your type at the very top of the box. It will always be a bit lower. But how much? There's no way of knowing and each font could be measured at a potentially different amount. The point to remember is that the characters won't start at the top of the cell so headlines will probably be a slight bit lower than where you established the coordinates.
At left we have a line of Brush Script that we would like two inches from the top of the page. Our text box is positioned with a Y of 2". However, because of the excess space, our type doesn't start at 2 inches but more like 2.174"! Reducing leading does nothing because there is no leading line above to adjust to. The top line always starts at the top of the box and leading cannot move this line.
In this solution we raise the box until it is on a ruler guide placed two inches from the top. The Y of the type box is now 1.828" from the top of the page. In this solution we use Baseline Shift to raise the type in its box a total of 12.5 points. The decimal points had to be input through the dialog box. When using baseline shift, be careful not to chop off the tops of the letters for image baseline shifted outside the box area will not print.
But if we have three or more lines of type in our box we will have a serious problem controlling leading. Baseline shift will move the top line out of its character cell but will leave the cell where it is. Leading is not calculated from the type but from the location of the character cell.
At left we have three lines of 40 point type and wish to use Baseline shift to raise the top line so it is on the edge of the box. In this poor solution we raise the top line with Baseline Shift a total of 8 points and it is at the top of the box. However, there is now eight more points space between the first and second line than between the second and third which are adjusted entirely with leading control.
Are you having a bit of difficulty seeing the difference? There are a lot of descenders in the top line and it is therefore more difficult to see the difference. If you're not careful, errors like this may not be all that noticeable as you work, especially when you're in a rush! Compare the distance between x-height characters only.
We also have the excess space problem at the bottom of the character cell. Most fonts allow a zone for descender characters such as g, p, q, or y. Many even allow additional space below the descenders as well. Words set in all caps do not use descenders and will never reach to the bottom of the character cell. If you want a line set at the bottom of your box, it will be a slight distance above. True, the character cell will be at the bottom of the box but the type itself will not.
In this example of Cooper Black we take advantage of Quark's Vertical Alignment feature and set the type to Bottom alignment. However we are still a slight space above the ruler guide set at the desired 3" from the top of the page. In this solution we use Baseline Shift and lower the type a total of -3.7 points (shown in this enlarged version. For critical adjustment, zoom in very close and make sure the type is not being clipped. In this solution the text box was lowered a total of 2.050" gently touching the guideline. In this method, no clipping will occur since the type is still in its box.
If you want to set type with all caps, beware that the descender zone will probably not be used by your typeface. Nor will any of the excess space above and below the characters. Add this all together and there can be a considerable amount of blank space between the type lines. There are two solutions. First, you can reduce the leading. It may even be necessary to use negative leading. This is a typographic term which means that the amount of leading is less than the point size of the type. This will force the character cells to overlap. This causes no problems whatsoever unless the characters themselves overlap; but it does eliminate the excess space problem.
In the old days, leading was never less than point size because the size of type was calculated from the top to bottom of the type character (no cell) and there was no extra space above and below the character. As a result, if the leading value were less than the point size the type would overlap. Not so with today's digital type and setting the leading value less than the point size (which is not the size of the type but about the height of the character cell) actually eliminates some of the extra blank space. The result is that the lines of type appear to be closer together and probably won't overlap unless there is a great difference between size and leading.
At left are three lines of University Roman at 40 point size and 40 points of leading. The result is shown at left. At left, the same 40 point type is adjusted with leading of 30 points. This is a considerable difference between size and leading but the type characters do not touch.
Would we want our type lines this close? Maybe, for it is up to the designer to decide how close the lines should be.
Many years ago, before computers, designers were told that their leading should be 120% of the type size. In our example, the leading would require 48 points. This old fashioned rule is no longer applicable and should be ignored with lament for a time when things sort of worked the way they were intended!
Problem:
To demonstrate the difficulties of working with the type characters in character cells we can construct a simple problem. Your task is to set three lines in a text box with a border on the box. The space between the border and between the lines of type should be minimal with the type lines almost touching (that's what the customer wants!) The type is also set in all capital letters making the problem more difficult. To adjust the width, use Horizontal Scale, but do so after all other work is done.
Unfortunately, no solution is given here for that ruins the fun of the puzzle! But for clues, it will be necessary to use Baseline Shift and negative Leading as part of your solution. How big should the type be? As large as possible and you may not know how big that is until you have made significant adjustments only to realize you can fit in another point or two of size! This will, of course, upset all your other settings! Below is a screen capture of what your solution should look like after several minutes of work. The actual type looks better than the screen capture because your screen pixels will be forced to one row or another 1/72 of an inch. This can be frustrating when trying to get accurate visual results.
Conclusion
Our first unresolved issue is, "Why does this happen?" How is it that a major component of a typesetting program (Quark) never actually sets type? But you should understand how programs interact with operating systems to get the job done. It is the operating system that provides the mechanism for placing characters on screen. This routine is available to programmers to use by linking it to their programs. For example, the writer of a word processing program will use the routines to put type on their page. So will spreadsheet programs although they usually use a lot of numbers.Quark is programmed to do more with these routines than most other programs. By working closely with the operating system, Quark is able to give you typographic capabilities worthy of the highest level of technical perfection. But you're occasionally going to have to fight Quark and the operating system to get what you want. Although we have explored a few potential problems, these could be more and you will discover them when you try to make an adjustment and it does not respond as expected.
This entire discussion does not address any of the numerous font problems such as substituting fonts of the same name. Nor does it deal with fonts of different systems and how some output devices will not work properly unless you feed them the required typeface formats. We have limited this discussion.
But what can you do about the problems of the character cell? Not very much, but by knowing what exactly the problem is you should be more patient with the limitations of the system. And, of course, be prepared to do battle with both Quark and the system to get the results you want and need.
