Formatting paragraphs question

[The Bass Bagwhan]

Hi everyone, when you justify a paragraph sometimes you get these odd lines that have large spaces between the words, kind of stretched out, because of the words in that particular line.
Someone has pointed out that professionally formatted books usually don't have this problem.
Is there a fine-tuning trick in formatting the paragraph to achieve this? I'm using the latest Word.

Thanks!

[R. C.]

I presume from the question you are using full justification to "Evenly distribute your text evenly between the margins."  Also, I suspect you are using a monospaced typeface (font), which will exacerbate the problem.

The short answer is it is almost impossible to get MS Word to evenly space words in full justification. I did find an article here that claims to allow you to alter spacing for words within a line. Essentially, the "solution" recommends changing the spacing for specific words in a line.
 
Sadly, when this happens to me, I rewrite the sentences until they achieve my preferred aesthetic.

R.C.

[Bill Hiatt]

I haven't tried Amazon's and D2D's formatting, but I know with Vellum, it converts the material so that the spacing is even without having to do all kinds of acrobatics to get there.

Also, I just checked. I have Word set for justified when I'm composing, and if a line is very short, Word doesn't try to spread it out. Are you perhaps using an old version? I think 2021 is the last standalone version. Office 365 doesn't display a version number.

[RiverRun]

I think what you need is called kerning, which is changing the spaces between characters. I googled it and found this.

Kern the characters that are above a particular size

Kerning refers to the way spacing between two specific characters is adjusted. The idea is to give a better looking result by reducing the spacing between characters that fit together nicely (such as "A" and "V") and increasing the spacing between characters that don't.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/change-the-spaces-between-text-e9b96011-1c42-45c0-ad8f-e8a6e4a33462

I've always been a little fuzzy on this myself and don't usually bother about it. But I know it's a thing. Maybe the link above will help you get started.

[Bill Hiatt]

Yes, kerning is one of the things that can be manually addressed.

As I recall though, it is a very time-consuming process. That's where formatting programs come in.

[Post-Doctorate D]

If you're using professionally-produced fonts, they likely have the kerning built-in, so long as your formatting application recognizes it.

That's one of the slow parts of developing a font.  Once you've finished creating all the glyphs, you need to working on the kerning.  Some font developers, especially those offering free or inexpensive fonts, won't bother with the kerning.

Is there a fine-tuning trick in formatting the paragraph to achieve this? I'm using the latest Word.

The "trick" is to not use Word for formatting for print.  For optimal results, you want something like InDesign, QuarkXpress or maybe even Scribus.

[The Bass Bagwhan]

Thanks everyone, food for thought. I'm not too fussed so I'll probably not invest in the pricey software just to fix the issue. But the kerning thing worth looking into — thanks.

[Lynn]

In Word, if you want to adjust letter spacing, go into the Font settings for some selected text (such as the line that is giving you problems), and choose Character Spacing under Advanced. Then select Expanded or Condensed and input as small a number as you can to get the results you want. If you expand, it will fill the empty space better, and if you contract, it might allow another word to flow onto the line and make it look better.

To the naked eye in print, small adjustments are hardly noticeable, yet they can significantly improve the look of justified text. If you make large adjustments, it can look weird, so it's best to be conservative. You can adjust in 0.1 pt increments, the last time I checked.

[The Bass Bagwhan]

In Word, if you want to adjust letter spacing, go into the Font settings for some selected text (such as the line that is giving you problems), and choose Character Spacing under Advanced. Then select Expanded or Condensed and input as small a number as you can to get the results you want. If you expand, it will fill the empty space better, and if you contract, it might allow another word to flow onto the line and make it look better.

To the naked eye in print, small adjustments are hardly noticeable, yet they can significantly improve the look of justified text. If you make large adjustments, it can look weird, so it's best to be conservative. You can adjust in 0.1 pt increments, the last time I checked.

Thanks Lynn, you must be a Word "power user"!  Cheers for this.

[PJ Post]

A note on formatting. Use Lynn's advice at the very end of your editing process. Any subsequent fixes prior to this line will shift this text around and create a new problem.

[R. C.]

A note on formatting. Use Lynn's advice at the very end of your editing process. Any subsequent fixes prior to this line will shift this text around and create a new problem.

 

Exactly right, emphasis added -- This is why it is difficult to achieve an homogenized character spacing in Word.

R.C.

[Post-Doctorate D]

Just don't confuse kerning and tracking.

Kerning adjusts the spacing between two specific characters.

Tracking adjusts the spacing between multiple characters in a line or paragraph or specific selected text.

[Bill Hiatt]

There is another potential wrinkle. The way Word displays documents is partly a function of what your default printer driver currently is, as well as a couple of other print-related issues.
https://word.tips.net/T000213_Stable_Layout_on_Different_Printers.
I've had this very issue with one of my editors. When I conferred with him on the manuscript, I discovered the document paginated differently for him than it did for me, apparently because we had different printer drivers.

What this means is that what you see on the screen is not necessarily what your output will be like. This is irrelevant to ebook format but might be an issue for print format. After kerning, render to PDF and see if everything came out as intended. If not, you might be able to solve the problem by selecting the PDF printer as your default while doing the kerning.

Given how long manual rekerning can take (depending on how many lines look as if they need fixing), it might be wise to experiment a little in Amazon Create and/or D2D to see if either kerns automatically to your satisfaction. Both are free. I haven't used either and can't find a specific statement related to kerning about either, but it seems as if it would be worth a try. I know Vellum kerns like a champ, but it is true it costs money and only has a Mac. (I maintain a cheap Macbook just to use it, but that isn't going to be sensible for everyone's budget.

[Lynn]

If you use Word for layout (and I've done it and got a decent paperback out of it), I do suggest you print to PDF or save as PDF and upload that. Don't upload your Word doc. The layout could turn out differently, as Bill says, and that is just another headache you don't need after all the work of making the print edition. Honestly, I don't even know if anyone still accepts Word doc uploads for print books?

Scribus works well (it's an open source alternative to InDesign), but it has a steep learning curve and I still don't use it even though I finally figured it out some odd years ago.

[The Bass Bagwhan]

I presume from the question you are using full justification to "Evenly distribute your text evenly between the margins."  Also, I suspect you are using a monospaced typeface (font), which will exacerbate the problem.

The short answer is it is almost impossible to get MS Word to evenly space words in full justification. I did find an article here that claims to allow you to alter spacing for words within a line. Essentially, the "solution" recommends changing the spacing for specific words in a line.
 
Sadly, when this happens to me, I rewrite the sentences until they achieve my preferred aesthetic.

R.C.

It's worth asking ... the font is Trebuchet. Not my favourite choice, I prefer Times New Roman or Georgia. Is Trebuchet a problematic font?

[R. C.]

I presume from the question you are using full justification to "Evenly distribute your text evenly between the margins."  Also, I suspect you are using a monospaced typeface (font), which will exacerbate the problem.

The short answer is it is almost impossible to get MS Word to evenly space words in full justification. I did find an article here that claims to allow you to alter spacing for words within a line. Essentially, the "solution" recommends changing the spacing for specific words in a line.
 
Sadly, when this happens to me, I rewrite the sentences until they achieve my preferred aesthetic.

R.C.

It's worth asking ... the font is Trebuchet. Not my favourite choice, I prefer Times New Roman or Georgia. Is Trebuchet a problematic font?

I put several fonts to the test - Here

After confirming with 'Zon that is available for use, I prefer Bookerly for almost all books. You'll notice in the PDF, the differences are subtle but there are differences. It comes down to how much time you want to spend to achieve a marginal improvement.

On the topic of alternative tools, I have experimented a couple of times with InDesign. I found it not intuitive, cumbersome to use, and overly complex for simple actions. Example, there is no “Import” you must use a keying sequence to “Place” text into a document. But, the formatting is either lost or misaligned. I use MS Word, save as a PDF for loading into the distributors, and the paperbacks look just fine.


R.C.

[The Bass Bagwhan]

I presume from the question you are using full justification to "Evenly distribute your text evenly between the margins."  Also, I suspect you are using a monospaced typeface (font), which will exacerbate the problem.

The short answer is it is almost impossible to get MS Word to evenly space words in full justification. I did find an article here that claims to allow you to alter spacing for words within a line. Essentially, the "solution" recommends changing the spacing for specific words in a line.
 
Sadly, when this happens to me, I rewrite the sentences until they achieve my preferred aesthetic.

R.C.

It's worth asking ... the font is Trebuchet. Not my favourite choice, I prefer Times New Roman or Georgia. Is Trebuchet a problematic font?

I put several fonts to the test - Here

After confirming with 'Zon that is available for use, I prefer Bookerly for almost all books. You'll notice in the PDF, the differences are subtle but there are differences. It comes down to how much time you want to spend to achieve a marginal improvement.

On the topic of alternative tools, I have experimented a couple of times with InDesign. I found it not intuitive, cumbersome to use, and overly complex for simple actions. Example, there is no “Import” you must use a keying sequence to “Place” text into a document. But, the formatting is either lost or misaligned. I use MS Word, save as a PDF for loading into the distributors, and the paperbacks look just fine.


R.C.

Yes, I realised that I had a copy of InDesign available and watched a few video tutorials ... some of the workflows are familiar because I use Photoshop, but it is a lot to understand just to format a text-only novel. Then I found out I couldn't install InDesign anyway because, I think, it's CS5 from 2010 and I'm on Win 11. I was kind of happy and didn't try too hard.
I too am satisfied with the results Word gives me, but I'm working with someone else on this one and they're the one being concerned about this spacing issue. I've suggested running the MS through Kindle Create to see if that helps. As you say, we're already at a point where the time and energy spent isn't worth the marginal improvement.
It's getting to the point where if they want to spend money on Vellum — or someone who uses Vellum — that's their call.

Thanks for all the help, everyone. I've learned.