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About composition methods


    Photoshop and ImageReady offer two composition methods: the Adobe Every-line Composer and the Adobe Single-line Composer. Both composition methods evaluate possible breaks and choose the one that best supports the hyphenation and justification options you've specified for a given paragraph.

    The Every-line Composer

    Considers a network of break points for a range of lines and thus can optimize earlier lines in the paragraph in order to eliminate especially unattractive breaks later on. Working with multiple lines of type results in more even spacing and fewer hyphens.

    The Every-line composer approaches composition by identifying possible breakpoints, evaluating them, and assigning a weighted penalty based on these principles:

    • Highest importance is given to evenness of letter and word spacing. Possible breakpoints are evaluated and penalized according to how much they deviate from optimal spacing.
    • Hyphenation is avoided when possible. Breakpoints that require hyphenation are penalized more than those that create uneven spacing.
    • Good breakpoints are preferred over bad breakpoints. After breakpoint penalty values are identified for a range of lines, they are squared, magnifying the bad breakpoints. The composer then uses the good breakpoints.

    The Single-line Composer

    Offers a traditional approach to composing type one line at a time. This option is useful if you prefer to have manual control over how lines break. The Single-line composer uses the following principles when considering a breakpoint:

    • Compressed or expanded word spacing is preferable to hyphenation.
    • Hyphenation is preferable to compressed or expanded letter spacing.
    • If spacing must be adjusted, compression is better than expansion.