Every studio seems to have a different set of house rules they use for typography. The basics are usually standard. But many typographic principles, having evolved over centuries, are still being modernized based on project-specific means. Conflicting opinions range from the uses of em-dashes, punctuation within bulleted lists, to acceptable abbreviations and even the proper placement of punctuation when used with quotes. Speaking of quotes; single or double?

Ellipsis ( ... ) should be preceded and followed by a space ... such as this. Also, rather than typing three full-stops, use the proper key command (Option-; ). Saying this, I cannot remember anyone who has allowed a space before their ellipsis.

Fractions should never be typed and left as is. Dan Rodney’s Proper Fraction a plug-in for InDesign is helpful. He offers a free version alongside a Pro version. The free version enables you to do basic transforms by current selection. If you have a large document, the Pro version will save you loads of time. Also, look at your OpenType fonts. They will usually offer a set of standard fractions included in the glyph sets.

Spaces I absolutely hate when people use double spaces as a design element (I’m not even going to talk about you losers who still use spaces instead of tabs). Often you will see a folio like this:

Character Style News | Page 45

The designer will put two spaces before and after the vertical rule. When you do a Find & Replace for double spaces (and I hope you do), you will either inadvertently delete your 'intentional' double space (stupid), or you will hit the Skip/Ignore button for every instance (tedious). InDesign has a quite a few spacing options so why not use them? Go to your Type menu, Insert White Space and experiment.

Alternatively, you can set up tabs to control your spacing. Tabs are also ideal in bulleted lists, because they can be declared globally through your style sheets, giving you more control.

Another use for InDesign's white spaces is before and after a slash. If you use a hair space or sixth space you might like the results. If you're happy with it you can do a find and replace for all of your slashes in the document.

Regardless of my opinion, or anyone else’s, the most important thing is this; whichever typography conventions you decide upon, keep faithful to them throughout your document.

Here are some other typography treats:

Dan Rodney’s Proper Fraction

Jason Dewinetz’s Book Typography Checklist

Grammar Book Rules of Punctuation

The copy above was lovingly typeset by Stephen Kelman for Gutter/01.