What Are Rivers In Typography?

by | Last updated on January 24, 2024

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In typography, rivers (or rivers of white) are gaps in typesetting which appear to run through a paragraph of text due to a coincidental alignment of spaces .

What are rivers in design?

Rivers are when text is incorrectly justified . Unevenly distributed words and paragraphs, create large gaps of white space between them.

What are rags in typography?

What’s a rag? Rags are commonly the most overlooked detail in typography. They are the line breaks to the right of this paragraph . A good rag goes in and out from line to line in small increments. A bad rag creates distracting shapes of white space in the margin. (

What can you do to avoid a river in your text?

As graphic designers, we can easily avoid these rivers by increasing or decreasing the letter spacing between the words when we design infographics, brochures, research reports or other marketing materials.

How do you fix rivers in typography?

The only way to fix a river is to coax the text into re-ragging, creating new line endings . A minor tweak to tracking is probably the easiest. Because rivers are most often born of overly wide word spaces, try tightening the tracking as a first effort.

What is a widow in typography?

Widow: A widow occurs when the last line of a paragraph is not able to fit at the bottom of a page or column . Instead, it sits at the top of the next page, looking out of place.

What is a 10 point type?

At 0.375 mm, it was slightly bigger than today’s PostScript or DTP point which measures 0.353 mm . So if you enter a 10 pt font size in Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign, you define that your font will have a size of 3.53 mm .

What is a kerning table?

The ‘kern’ table contains the values that adjust the intercharacter spacing for glyphs in a font . ... Kerning can be parallel to the flow of text or perpendicular to the flow of text, or both. For example, if perpendicular kerning is specified and if text is normally written horizontally, kerning will be up or down.

Why is justified text bad?

Justifying text disrupts that even texture . Even if a page layout program is using subtle letter-spacing, or adjusting the width of the letters – these things, too, will make the texture uneven. So, justified text should really be avoided not just on the web, but whenever possible.

What does typography include?

In essence, typography is the art of arranging letters and text in a way that makes the copy legible, clear, and visually appealing to the reader. Typography involves font style, appearance, and structure, which aims to elicit certain emotions and convey specific messages.

What is a bad rag?

ill-natured, ill mannered .

Why are widows called orphans?

This break is caused by the unintended white space that calls more attention than necessary to the single word . Similarly, a line or word of text that jumps to the next page/column or starts a page/column should be avoided for the same reason. This would be called an “orphan” or “widow”.

What is a orphan in word?

Orphan. A paragraph-opening line that appears by itself at the bottom of a page or column , thus separated from the rest of the text. ... Alternately, a word, part of a word, or very short line that appears by itself at the end of a paragraph.

What is a river of white and what causes it?

In typography, rivers (or rivers of white) are gaps in typesetting which appear to run through a paragraph of text due to a coincidental alignment of spaces . Rivers can occur regardless of the spacing settings, but are most noticeable with wide inter-word spaces caused by full text justification or monospaced fonts.

What is a widow in printing?

A “widow” is the last line of a paragraph that appears alone at the top of the next page , and an “orphan” is the first line of a paragraph that appears alone at the bottom of a page. Default widow and orphan settings are typically configured for two lines in order to prevent isolated single lines.

How do you fix rivers in Word?

Rivers, or text rivers can be avoided or fixed by adjusting the hyphenation and justification settings , commonly called the “H&J” settings, which can be found in most high end creative design suites.

Diane Mitchell
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Diane Mitchell
Diane Mitchell is an animal lover and trainer with over 15 years of experience working with a variety of animals, including dogs, cats, birds, and horses. She has worked with leading animal welfare organizations. Diane is passionate about promoting responsible pet ownership and educating pet owners on the best practices for training and caring for their furry friends.