Balancing Columns

Balancing columns in Pagemaker has long been a contentious issue - many people claim it can't be done automatically.

Columns are balanced when the baselines of type on all columns on a page line up with each other. This is relatively easy to achieve in programs such as Ventura Publisher which put type in frames, and define multiple columns within the frame. You can just set a paragraph attribute to tell the program to balance columns and it will add small amounts of extra space between paragraphs so that all the columns will balance.

Pagemaker, with it's separate text blocks for each column cannot use this method. There is however a way to achieve balanced columns, but it can be done it just requires a bit of preplanning when designing your publication.

Pagemaker allows you to set up an invisible leading grid on which you must base the styles in your publication. For example, if you choose a leading size of 12 point for your publication, then set the leading of your body text as 12 point, you can set up your paragraph styles so that the baselines of all paragraphs with 12 point leading will be aligned. Pagemaker does this by inserting a small amount of extra space after paragraphs which would throw the leading grid of the following paragraph off the invisible grid.

In order for paragraph baselines to work, the paragraphs to be aligned must all have their leading set to the same point size (which must be a specified number, not "Auto") and the paragraph before the paragraph to be aligned must have the "Paragraph - Rules - Options - Align next paragraph to grid box checked and the "Grid size" set to the same point size as the leading of the paragraph to be aligned.

This sounds a bit complicated, but once you have played with the settings and got a feel for how they work it is very easy to use. It will save you a lot of time if you are used to manually adding space between paragraphs to get your columns to balance.

This feature has been available in Pagemaker since version 4. Version 6 has a new Plug In called Balance Columns which does an entirely different thing to the baseline method of balancing we have just looked at. This plug in lets you select a number of text blocks and choose some options for alignment and it will then adjust the sizes of the text blocks as best as possible to equalise their lengths. Beware sometimes this may cause text to drop off from the last line, and it will not change any paragraph spacing to align baselines of text.