Using Hanging Punctuation

Manually Hanging Punctuation on Left Margin

Method 1

1. Add a space in front of the left quotation mark
2. Kern the space to the left (negative kern value) until it moves outside the margin
   Note: The quotation mark may not show up on screen once kerned but it will print.

Method 2

1. Apply a hanging indent to the paragraph so that the quotation mark extends to the left of the optical margin for the remainder of the text.
2. Or, create a paragraph style or style sheet with a hanging indent.

Manually Hanging Punctuation on Right Margin

For right-aligned or fully justified text, to manually hang the punctuation along the right edge of the text insert the same punctuation (quotation mark, period, etc.) at the end of each line. Reverse the punctuation to make it invisible (except for the last real punctuation). Depending on the font, this can be tricky to do.

The above illustration shows what you see and what you normally don't see (the reversed characters are shown on a blue background).

The next time you set type, especially pull-quotes, add that extra bit of polish with hanging punctuation.

1. Introduction Hanging Punctuation
2. Technical Alignment Close-up Without Hanging Punctuation
3. Optical Alignment Close-up With Hanging Punctuation
4. Automatic Hanging Punctuation Create Hanging Punctuation Automatically
5. this page

• Examples of Hanging Punctuation
• Technical Alignment
• Optical Alignment
• Creating Hanging Punctuation
• Manually Creating Hanging Punctuation