Planning fitting
Contents
Before creating fitting presets, answer following questions:
| 1. | If a headline is too long for the assigned space, what would be the correct action? |
| 2. | If a text is too long for the assigned space, is it acceptable to apply fitting on a single paragraph basis |
About 30% of newspapers have simple answer on both question: "a headline and body text have to be rewritten or re-worded, because the change of the formatting is not an option for the copy fitting purposes". If you work for such newspaper skip the rest of this chapter.
If a newspaper responds on first question like "yes, we could choose slightly smaller type", or "we could accept the slight condensing of type (base change)", then the next two simple questions to answer are "how many changes at once" and "how much slight?".
How many changes at once?
The fitting presets allow to combine the shrinking/stretching actions at once, acting on type size and/or base, tracking and spaceband in any combination of values and limits. However, it is possible also to create presets that will act on a single attribute, for example, only on type size, or only on type base. Therefore, you must decide what changes will put in each preset.
How much slight?
Typically, newspaper accept range of attribute changes between 5% and about 20% (or even more when changing base of characters). Therefore, you must decide what is an acceptable range for each attribute: size, base, tracking and spaceband.