Design query: Space Before or After?

[Greg_Gaspard@adobeforums.com]

In speaking to a production vendor today, she mentioned that a provided prototype was set up with Space After attributes on the body paragraphs with no Space Before. She mentioned that using Space After went against her design training and would prefer to change my styles to use Space Before. Huh? What's your opinion on Space Before vs. After? Is there some school of thought that dictates the use of one over the other?

[Dominic_Hurley@adobeforums.com]

I use whatever fits best with the text - for example, headings have space before and after, and if I don't want text after a heading to have cumulative space, I'd use space after for the text (ie, where there is interparagraph spacing). Where it doesn't make any difference, I default to space after because I guess that's the way my mind works - I follow the text from top to bottom.

[Vern_Klukas@adobeforums.com]

I agree with Dominic, I tend to default to space after, but use whatever (or a combination, even) suits the spacing task at hand.

Yours
Vern

[JamesStep@gmail.com]

I generally use "space below" because it just seems more natural, but I
think its mostly personal preference.

Perhaps whoever taught her just had a strong personal preference for
"space above", and she mistook that preference for some kind of design
rule.

[DavidT]

It depends upon the design, simple as that.

[Marco_A_SantaMaria@adobeforums.com]

the important thing is to keep consistent with the form you do it. I use both depending the situation.

[JohnO@adobeforums.com]

In the end, there's no difference whatsoever. Your vendor probably learned
from someone who had a strong preference, and who passed that along to the
students. But if she can tell you WHY it makes a difference and how your
project would look better as a result, then you can make a decision to
change. Otherwise, it's just personal bias, IMO.

I do mainly text-heavy docs and use both types of spacing, sometimes both at
once.

-John O

[Peter_Gold@adobeforums.com]

Speaking of one's training setting lifelong habits, FrameMaker users may be accustomed to its unique method of computing space between paragraphs. FrameMaker uses the larger value of space below (after) and space above (before) for the space between paragraphs.

In my experience, I've not found another application for DTP, page layout, or word processing, that works this way - all seem to add the two values. This makes the "be consistent - use before or after" suggestion even more important.

Does anyone who's using tried using both space before and after, in additive applications, have any experience, comments, or advice on using baseline synchronization combined with only space before or after? Is it simpler to set up and maintain?
________________
Regards,

Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices

[Fred_Goldman@adobeforums.com]

Ask her what it's there for?!?!?!

I usually use space before, but one place I find space after very useful is after a heading. The next paragraph would have to have a new style with a space before amount set. By using space after in the heading style I save myself creating a new style.

[Scott_Falkner@adobeforums.com]

I generally use Spae After. It's more intuitive for me, since I view the space as following the text I just read, rather than preceding the text I have yet to read.

Cosider this example:


Cras commodo hendrerit sapien. Phasellus venenatis. Nullam nibh. Integer adipiscing pharetra est. Nunc iaculis. Aliquam enim eros, pharetra vel, consectetuer non, interdum et, purus.

Subhead
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Ut neque dui, sodales id, porttitor eget, aliquam eu, metus. Fusce vitae orci sit amet eros convallis sodales.

* Bullet Point
* Bullet Point
* Bullet Point

Aliquam erat volutpat. Pellentesque venenatis pretium tellus. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos. Ut eu quam.


I find it much easier to set up styles using Space After. This would need four styles: Body Copy, Subhead, Bullet, Last Bullet.

[M_Blackburn@adobeforums.com]

Greg,

I'm curious what you mean by a "production vendor," and why she would feel she had to change something like that. As Fred points out, simply changing space after to space before won't necessarily leave the design intact: one has to consider how all the styles interact. She may have to add new styles to keep everything as it was.

Her assertion that using space after goes against her "design training" is superficial, perhaps even a bit pompous. Design is about the amount of visual space between two things; the logic of how that space is expressed as coded values in a computer application is an entirely different thing entirely. Design predates page layout programs, DTP, even electronic typesetting. The target audience doesn't see file structure.

[Dominic_Hurley@adobeforums.com]

> In my experience, I've not found another application for DTP, page layout, or word processing, that works this way - all seem to add the two values.

Ventura also works like Frame but it has a few more settings that I wish ID had. One is "add space above at column tops" and the other is this really nifty setting that lets you specify a space that will be added between two paragraphs if they both have the same space above or below setting. I was able to use it to minimise the number of styles I needed for stacked headings, like a basic sort of conditional style. (Ventura also has "add space above only at column tops", but I don't think I've ever needed that.)

Given the choice, I prefer Frame's and Ventura's way of calculating the space.

[Brian_Hinther@adobeforums.com]

There is also Bringhurst's asymmetrical leading for subheads, to keep your lines on a grid without using a grid (and avoiding huge hard return-like gaps). Those spaces could use both, e.g., dividing 12pt leading into 8pts before and 4pts after.

[Dominic_Hurley@adobeforums.com]

It's not really Bringhurst's spacing - unequal spacing around headings was around long before he put pen to paper. I prefer to use baseline shift rather than splitting the space before and after, so that the following text remains on the grid even when the heading falls at the top of a page. (Though the heading will ride higher than the facing page, I find it the lesser of two evils.)