Flexible Typesetting

Chapter 4. Shaping Text Blocks

Now you have a text that you understand and care about, and have chosen some typefaces that you intend to use. You also have some compositional sketches from your text-block inventory. This bird’s-eye view will guide you as you focus on shaping individual text blocks (Fig 4.1).

Fig 4.1: Gather all of the pieces you need to begin shaping text blocks.

At this point in the process, people often reach for a shortcut. They look for a system, a script library, a framework—some preexisting code they hope will make it ...