The art of book typesetting

I fell in love with typography as a student at NSCAD University. Amongst other subjects, I learned to set metal type – the smell of ink transports me back to the days I spent labouring over my galleys in the basement of the design division.

During my 30+ years as a graphic designer, I’ve worked on many books for publishers in the UK & Canada. I’ve designed and typeset cookbooks, novels, academic textbooks, guidebooks, art books, how-to books, poetry, biographies, children’s books, journals, young adult & history books. Working on these projects allows me to delve into the minutiae of type and handle all the little details that make for a beautiful book.

What does a book typesetter do? We set type! What does this mean?

A typical project could consist of the following (after initial design layout has been approved by the publisher):

• receive Microsoft Word file from publisher
• fix Word file
• make sure notes are either endnotes or footnotes
• fix ellipses to true ellipses (not three periods)
• change hyphens to en or em dashes, with or without spaces depending on publisher’s house style
• delete double spaces at end of sentences
• ensure end punctuation is inside or outside of quotation marks depending on UK or Canadian style
• remove empty paragraph returns and tabs
• remove space at start of paragraphs
• set true small caps
• set fractions as true fractions: ½ not 1/2
• set true curly quotes
• set non-breaking spaces so you don’t have “see p. 18” with the “p.” on one line and the 18 on the following line
• set up master pages including appropriate running feet and folios
• apply paragraph and character styles, using nested styles, GREP styles, etc
• fix widows & orphans
• fix kerning issues
• make nice rags
• fix loose and tight lines
• eliminate ladders, rivers & runts
• fix bad hypenation
• set tables
• set captions
• set table of contents & index
• make revisions & edits after first pages are sent back from the publisher, repeat as necessary

Here is a before and after example from the guidebook Edinburgh Celebrity City Guide

 

As you can see, a book typesetter spends a lot of time finessing the original manuscript into legible and readable type. Great typesetting is when no one notices it and only sees (and reads!) a beautiful book.