Typography Rules & Common Typesetting Errors
A practical reference to typography rules, common typesetting errors, language-specific conventions, and how to detect them in Adobe InDesign.
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Widows & Orphans
A widow or orphan is an isolated line of a paragraph separated from the lines it belongs with at the top or bottom of a column or page.
WIDOWORPHANShort Last Lines
A short last line is a paragraph ending whose occupied width is small enough to look weak, ambiguous, or visually detached.
SHORT_LINERivers of White Space
A river is a conspicuous vertical or diagonal path formed by aligned word spaces across neighboring lines.
RIVERDouble Spaces
A double space is a run of two or more ordinary word spaces where contemporary typeset prose expects one.
DOUBLE_SPACERepeated Words
A repeated-word finding identifies adjacent identical words that may be an accidental duplication.
REPEATED_WORDStraight vs Typographic Quotes
Straight ASCII quote marks are generic keyboard characters; typographic quotation marks and apostrophes have opening, closing, and locale-dependent forms.
STRAIGHT_QUOTESMART_QUOTEQuotation Marks by Language
Quotation mark shape, direction, nesting, spacing, and punctuation placement depend on language, region, and editorial style.
SMART_QUOTESTRAIGHT_QUOTEPunctuation Spacing
Punctuation spacing controls whether a space is required, forbidden, or non-breaking before and after a punctuation mark.
PUNC_SPACE_BEFOREPUNC_SPACE_AFTERREPEATED_PUNCTNon-breaking Spaces
A non-breaking space preserves visible separation while preventing a line break between related items.
PREPOSITIONUNIT_SPACEHyphen, En Dash & Em Dash
Hyphens join or divide words; en and em dashes express ranges, relationships, interruptions, or parenthetical structure according to editorial style.
DASH_USAGEEllipsis
An ellipsis represents omitted or trailing content; its character form and surrounding spaces must follow the publication’s language and style.
ELLIPSISHyphenation Ladders
A hyphenation ladder is a run of consecutive lines ending in hyphens beyond the publication’s tolerated limit.
HYPHENATIONBad Rag
Rag describes the changing edge of unjustified text; a bad rag contains distracting shapes, abrupt steps, or accidental patterns.
BAD_RAGVertical Rhythm
Vertical rhythm is the repeated spacing pattern created by leading, paragraph spacing, baselines, and aligned text structures across a layout.
RHYTHMVERTICAL_RHYTHMNumber & Unit Spacing
A number and its measurement unit normally form one semantic pair and should use the locale’s expected spacing without breaking across lines.
UNIT_SPACEDate Formats
Date order, separators, month names, and abbreviations are locale- and purpose-dependent; ambiguous numeric dates require human interpretation.
DATE_FORMATNumber Separators
Decimal and grouping separators are locale-dependent symbols whose incorrect substitution can change numerical meaning.
NUM_FORMATCurrency Typography
Currency typography combines symbol or code, value, placement, spacing, and locale or accounting convention.
CURRENCY_LOGICEnglish Typography Rules
English conventions vary substantially by region and publisher, especially quotation hierarchy, dash style, date order, and currency context.
EN IntlEN USEN UKEN AUEN NZGerman Typography Rules
German, Austrian, and Swiss German publishing share a language family but differ in quotation practice, currency context, grouping, and the use of ß.
DEDE ATDE CHFrench Typography Rules
French typography is especially sensitive to guillemet spacing and high-punctuation spacing, with meaningful differences among France, Switzerland, and Canada.
FRFR CHFR CACzech Typography Rules
The CZ profile combines Czech quotation, date, number, currency, unit, academic-title, and one-letter-word spacing checks.
CZPolish Typography Rules
The PL profile covers Polish quotation forms, one-letter words, dates, numbers, currency, unit spacing, and selected titles.
PLSpanish Typography Rules
Spanish publishing combines paired inverted punctuation with regional differences in separators and currency, especially across Latin America.
ESES LatAmES ARES CLES COES PEPortuguese Typography Rules
European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese differ in quotation preference and currency while sharing day-first dates and decimal-comma conventions.
PTBRItalian Typography Rules
Italian and Swiss Italian profiles differ mainly in Swiss number and currency conventions while retaining Italian language behavior.
ITIT CHDutch Typography Rules
The NL profile combines conservative quotation behavior with Dutch number, date, currency, and IJ capitalization evidence.
NLNordic Typography Profiles
Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and Finnish are separate conservative Avellio profiles collected here for comparison without pretending they share one language standard.
SEDANOFICentral & Southeast European Typography Profiles
A comparison hub for the conservative SK, HU, RO, HR, and SI profiles, which extend useful date, number, currency, and consistency checks without claiming complete national style coverage.
SKHUROHRSIMultilingual Swiss Typography
Swiss documents may combine German, French, and Italian conventions with shared Swiss numeric and currency behavior.
DE CHFR CHIT CHCH MixNo entries match this filter.