While writing my upcoming book “How To Start A Business: Mac Version” (Available now, click on the link to buy it) I am now at the point that while editing I need to take a look at typesetting my book, i.e. seeing how the look of the font and spacing of my text is on the pages of my book. Walton Mendelson, at 12on14.com, has done a great job of putting together his “Build Your Book” PDF of what it takes to make your book look great.
Leading (see in Wikibooks), which rhymes with heading, is the spacing between the lines of type and while most of us know about single and double (adding another complete blank line) spacing for school papers, in page layout in the publishing industry the spacing is measured in points, i.e. the size of font type is measured in points and so is line spacing. The lack of white space between lines makes it difficult for the eye to track from one line to the next, and hampers readability. Hence, adding small space between the lines.
While learning about line spacing nearly all industry lingo sometimes gets lost in application menus. However, after some digging the answer can be found.
In iWork Pages, you need to go to Inspector > Text > Line and under the space where a number is placed you’ll see a small drop down menu starting with “Single” and there you’ll begin playing with leading. You’ll need to select “Exactly” and measured in points you add a few points above your selected font size. If you select 12 sized font for your type select 14 as the line spacing or point size or 14 font size with a 16 point line spacing. Basically you’re adding two points above your font size as about average line spacing. Leading is stated as “12 on 14″ or 12/14 to describe the line spacing in font points.
After printing out a few pages of my book with single line spacing and then switching to “12 on 14″ using Garamond font for my book my wife liked the “12 on 14″ much better than the single line spacing.
There you have it, publishing layout details in Pages. One less thing to worry about, now on to more editing.
P.S. When it comes to leading, you also need to consider heading and subheads and the spacing that keeps facing pages “even” to the eye. See Basic Book Design/Headings and Subheads for more details about the “total look” of your book.
[...] Read the original: iWork '09 Pages: Typesetting using leading [...]
[...] Go here to see the original: iWork '09 Pages: Typesetting using leading, line spacing [...]
P.S. Blank lines at the top of a page are normally because you have hit the return key twice and have two returns where there should be only one. Use the View > Show Invisibles and it should show two blue paragraph marks.
If not, then it is probably a widow/orphan problem that is keeps a singe line of words from showing up at the top of a page (widow) or on the bottom of a page (orphan).