One of the most difficult jobs we have when turning a Word document into the text that will eventually be published is making the spacing right. There are several considerations here:
Extra spaces at the beginning of sentences?
No. This goes back to the days of the typewriter. It used to be the norm to put in an extra space before you started a new sentence. This isn’t needed now. The fonts are balanced in such a way that it is very clear from the upper case letter at the beginning of the sentence that we are now on to something new. This is relatively easy to fix and we have a computer programme that does this. However, even that takes a finite time to run and if you get it right in the first place you save us time.
Paragraph and section breaks
Paragraphs should normally be indented except where a new section begins. As we do the first stage of book design, we your text in Word on to another Word document where all the parameters and styles are set, paragraph and section breaks may look different. We’re never sure whether you want your work to look the way it looks on your page or the way code embedded in the text makes it look. To be really sure, it’s best to use the Word paragraphing tool. First paragraphs should have no indent and subsequent ones should have 0.5 inches on an A4 sheet.
Levels of section breaks
There really is only one level though some writers try to force an extra one by having normal paragraph breaks and some divided by a line of stars or points. The latter should only be used if the section break comes at the top or bottom of a page. E- books don’t like them anyway and they kind of become irrelevant as readers pick their own fonts and size of fonts so the pages are different for every reader. If one section break is more relevant than another it may be better to use a subtitle.
Blocking text
We still block text. This was done in books originally to stop ink accumulating at the side of the page. On the whole texts are now produced digitally so in theory there is no need for this. It is easier in fact to read texts with ragged right; texts are often left like this for early readers, academics and publishers. And on computer screens. You may like to work out why. Blocking spreads the text across the page and if an unnoticed extra space slips in it can make the page look very odd.
Avoiding rivers, orphans, widows and runts
Our programme helps us to avoid these.
Rivers this is where you can see a ‘river’ as you look at the gaps between words going down the page. It can distract you form reading
Widows A paragraph-ending line that falls at the beginning of the following page or column, thus separated from the rest of the text. Mnemonically, a widow is "alone at the top" (of the family tree but, in this case, of the page).
Orphans A paragraph-opening line that appears by itself at the bottom of a page or column, thus separated from the rest of the text. Mnemonically, an orphan is "alone at the bottom" (of the family tree but, in this case, of the page).
Runts A word, part of a word, or a very short line that appears by itself at the end of a paragraph. Mnemonically still "alone at the bottom", just this time at the bottom of a paragraph. Orphans of this type give the impression of too much white space between paragraphs.
Our software can only do this for the hard copy of the book. Those who read e-books may reintroduce them as they change font and font size.
Avoiding hyphenated words
Blocking can lead to some words being hyphenated at the end of lines. Our programme determines that there are between very few and none. However if we eliminate them altogether, some blocked lines can look very “stretched”.
We often find that authors query our spacing yet they read books with this sort of spacing all the time. They’re only noticing it now because they’re looking at the text more closely.
