DTP

Layout two stories

This hour, we're going to layout a story from last Thursday's Gazette, page A2.

Click this link to find the text to work with.

First, create a new document with these specs, the size of a Gazette page:

Size:
Width: 12.5"
Height: 22”

Margins:
Top: .5”
Bottom: .5”
Left: 3p
Right: 3p

Other:
Facing pages: No
Automatic text box: No
Columns: 6
Gutter width: 1p

We will need two text boxes in total: one for the headline and one for the body text. Start with one box for now: the body text. We will work on the body text first and then on the smaller elements of the layout. It's easier to work from big to small than from small to big.

Our story will be three columns wide, so create a text box that size. Make it high enough to hold all the text (12" works), but the exact height is not important right now. Place the box on the right margin of the page. Don't put it right in the top corner because we will put the box with the headline there.

Copy the body text, including byline and source, on the Web page and paste it into the text box in QuarkXPress. Now, let's format it. First, we need to make our text three columns. Do that in the measurements palette.

Time to add some styles:

Byline:
Helvetica, all caps, bold
Centre justified
Font size: 8pt
Leading: 11pt

Source (name of news outlet the story comes from):
Helvetica, all caps
Centre justified
Font size: 8pt
Leading: 11pt

Body text:
Times, plain
Left-right justified
Font size: 9.3pt
Leading: 11pt
First-line indent: 1p

However, do not put an indent on the first paragraph of the story, and style the dateline and hyphen like the byline.

Also, insert a blank line between the source and the dateline.

Notice how much less space the story takes up. We can now set the text box to the size our editor has allotted for it: 35p. We can do that in the measurements palette, too - but when we do that, note that we have one line of space to fill. How can we compensate so that the newspaper looks more professional? With tracking, which adjusts the spacing between letters and words.

To change the tracking, choose the entire text of the story - but not the byline or source. Then, adjust the tracking (between -3 and 3) in the measurements palette so that the story swells a bit to fill the space. In this case, 0.5 works fine.

Now we can start to build the story module, from top to bottom. The topmost element is the headline and that should go at the top of the page (against the top margin), against the right margin, and three columns wide, in this style:

Headline:
Times, plain
Centre justified
Font size: 30pt
Leading: 36pt

Because the headline is only one line deep, our headline box can also be set to 30pt high.

Now, we can put the headline box and body text box together. Drag to select both of those boxes, then choose Space/Align in the Item menu. Choose Vertical and set it to 8pt. Click OK and our boxes are aligned - and our story is done.