Bilingual programme set justified: loose Greek lines and English hyphen ladders
A 48-page bilingual Greek–English concert programme is set 170 × 240 mm with a 118 × 186 mm text area and 9.5/13 pt body type from a humanist serif family with matching Greek and Latin. The client insists that both languages be justified. The designer applies one paragraph style throughout: Adobe Paragraph Composer on, hyphenation enabled at two characters before and two after, a maximum of three consecutive hyphens, hyphenation zone 12 pt. All the text carries the language attribute English: UK, including the Greek pages, which were pasted from the translator's PDF. On proof, the Greek pages show loose lines, white rivers and several two-word lines; page 12 of the English section has two runs of three consecutive hyphenated line endings and splits a conductor's surname across the turn to page 13. Page 27 ends with a one-line widow, and a subheading sits alone at the foot of page 31. The printer needs final pages in one working day and no copy may be re-edited.
1. Both language blocks carry the same paragraph style, yet the Greek set is loose and the English set is over-hyphenated. Explain the mechanism and name the first two corrections.
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The governing factor is the language attribute, not the paragraph style. Every character carries a language, and both the hyphenation dictionary and the hyphenation rules follow it. Because the Greek text is tagged English: UK, the composer has no Greek dictionary and cannot break a Greek word at all: the only break opportunity left is the word space. Justifying a 118 mm measure with long Greek words and zero hyphenation forces the composer to stretch spaces until rivers appear and lines fall back to two words.
The English block has the opposite fault. The dictionary is correct, but the 2/2 minimum permits very short fragments (a two-letter syllable at a line end is almost invisible to the composer's badness count) and a limit of three lets three hyphenated endings stack.
First corrections: (1) apply the correct language attribute to the Greek text, which also switches spell-check and any language-specific exceptions; (2) raise the minimum to three characters before and after and cut the hyphen limit to two.
Note that the 12 pt hyphenation zone is a red herring here: it governs ragged-right setting, so changing it would have altered nothing in either justified block.
2. Write the body specification you would hand to production - values plus the reason for each - so that the justified setting holds without visible spacing.
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Composition
- Adobe Paragraph Composer: it evaluates the whole paragraph, so it will not cure one loose line by creating a worse one below.
- Justification: word spacing 90/100/110%, letter spacing −1/0/2%, glyph scaling 98/100/102%. The narrow word range is the point: a wider one (80/120 as now) is what allows rivers. Letter spacing is the second safety valve; glyph scaling stays last because it distorts stroke weight and shows at 9.5 pt.
Hyphenation
- On, minimum 3 before / 3 after, limit 2 consecutive, hyphenate capitalised words off, hyphenate last word off. Two letters before a break produces fragments such as a-, which readers notice more than a slightly loose line.
- Language attribute per word correct (Greek on Greek, English on English), plus a hyphenation exception list for names and Greek terms that must never split.
Keep options
- Widow/orphan control at 2 lines; subheads keep with next 2 lines.
Verification
- Proof at 100% and count hyphenated endings per spread (no more than two in a row), check for vertical white channels, and re-check the spreads immediately after any local fix.
3. Page 27 ends with a one-line widow, a subheading is stranded at the foot of page 31 and a surname breaks across pages 12/13. Fix these without global reflow, and state the risk attached to each fix.
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Widow on 27. First apply Keep Options widow/orphan control at 2 lines. If the resulting pull leaves a very short page, take one line out of the copy editorially (a cut of a few words on that page is invisible), or track that one paragraph at −5/1000 em. Risk: any local fix reflows everything after it, so a new widow can appear on 28; the fix must be done late and the following spread re-checked.
Stranded subhead on 31. Set Keep with Next Paragraph at 2 lines, or Keep Lines Together on the subhead plus its first two lines. Risk: the block jumps to page 32, leaving a short page 31 that may break the client's pagination plan (sponsor panels, page-per-work order). Confirm before moving.
Surname across 12/13. Add the name to the hyphenation exceptions and apply a No Break character style to it. Do not simply delete a discretionary hyphen, which the next edit will restore. Risk: the name becomes an unbreakable 12-character word and may loosen the preceding line; check spacing against the new 110% ceiling.
After any of these, run a full page-turn check of the affected spreads, because each fix exports its problem downstream.