Working with Text and Typography
Working with Text and Typography
Typography questions test both conceptual understanding and practical tool behavior. Know the difference between character and paragraph attributes: leading, tracking, kerning, and baseline shift are character-level; alignment, indents, space before/after, and hyphenation are paragraph-level. A classic trap is applying a paragraph-level change with only an insertion point placed - it affects the whole paragraph, which surprises candidates who expected a local change.
Understand paragraph, character, and nested styles, plus GREP styles for pattern-based formatting. Know that styles cascade: a paragraph style can contain a character style, and local overrides sit on top until cleared. Expect questions about clearing overrides versus redefining a style.
Candidates should understand text frame options (columns, inset, vertical justification, auto-size), threading and overset text, and the Story Editor. Know that text wrap lets objects push text away, and that wrap settings live on the object, not the text.
Watch for traps around hyphenation and justification settings, optical margin alignment, and the difference between tracking (uniform spacing across a range) and kerning (spacing between a specific pair). Also know Find/Change can target formatting and GREP patterns.
Rule of thumb: if a setting should apply to every paragraph of a kind, build it into a paragraph style rather than applying it manually - manual formatting creates overrides that fight future style edits.
Worked example
To make every occurrence of a product code bold automatically, create a character style and a GREP style in the paragraph style that matches the code pattern, rather than manually bolding each instance.