Layout Grid

How to set text on a grid of character cells and lines — frame grids for text frames, line span for paragraphs, and the layout grid for the whole layout.

Frame grid

A frame grid lays a grid of character cells (font size + character spacing) and lines (font size + line spacing) over a text frame. Text sits on the grid lines (the centre of each line's em box on the centre of a grid line), and full-width characters at the grid size fit the cells exactly. It works in horizontal and vertical text — in a vertical frame the cells run top to bottom and the lines right to left.

1. Select the text frame with the Select tool (not while editing).
2. In the Attributes tab, turn on Use frame grid in the Frame Grid section. The grid size starts from the size of the first character in the story.
3. Set Font size, Character spacing and Line spacing.
4. If the characters don't fit the cells, click Apply Grid Format. The whole story is set to the grid size.

Characters and Rows are the cells and lines that fit in the first column. Change them to resize the frame to fit exactly that many; Fit Frame to Grid shrinks the frame to the number that fits now. Resizing the frame with the handles changes the counts.

Font size, Character spacing and Line spacing are shown in pt at first. Choose Q·H (kyu·ha) in the Text units section shown when nothing is selected (or in Layout work settings › Units in the web portal) to see the size in Q and the spacing in H (1 Q = 1 H = 0.25 mm). Only the displayed unit changes; the layout stays the same.

A line with characters larger than the grid takes several grid lines and is centred on them. The last grid line fits the bottom of the frame exactly; lines below it flow to the next frame. The grid is shown on screen only and does not appear in the PDF or in print. Character spacing is not added before the first character of a line, and proportional Latin letters may fall off the cells. Table cells and text on a path have no frame grid. Lines shortened by text wrap still start on a cell boundary. Preflight warns when linked frames use different grids.

Related questions

• How do I make a frame grid (genkō yōshi style) for Japanese text?
• Where are the frame grid settings?
• How do I set characters per line and lines per frame?

Line span

Sets how many grid lines a paragraph occupies in a frame grid — for example, centring a heading on three lines (gyōdori).

While editing, put the caret in the paragraph and enter the number in Line span in the Attributes tab's Paragraph section. 0 sets it automatically from the font size. The field appears only while editing a frame that uses a frame grid. You can also set it in the paragraph style settings dialog.

Below it, Grid alignment sets where lines sit in the rows: Em box center (default), Em box top, Em box bottom, ICF top, ICF bottom or Roman baseline. With None the paragraph leaves the grid and follows its own leading, and the next grid paragraph starts on the next row below it (useful for headings or captions). It can also be set in the paragraph style settings dialog's keep options.

Related questions

• How do I centre a heading across several grid lines?
• Where is the gyōdori (line span) setting?

Layout grid settings

The layout grid is a layout setting that defines the page's text area as characters × lines.

1. In Layout Setup › Layout Grid, turn on Use layout grid.
2. Set Direction (horizontal or vertical), Font size, Character spacing, Line spacing, Characters, Rows, and Count / Column gutter. The text area and margins are shown below.
3. Click OK.

On OK the margins change so the text area is centred on the page, and the primary text frames are fitted to that area with a frame grid and direction of the same values. Primary text frames on new pages get the same. One ⌘/Ctrl+Z undoes it. If the text area is larger than the page, the margins are left unchanged.

Change Reference to place the text area against the chosen top/bottom and inside/outside edges instead of the page centre, with distances from those edges (like InDesign's grid start position).

If you turn on Layout grid in the web portal's new layout dialog, the layout is created with these settings from the start.

The grid button in View on the Layout panel (Show layout grid — the page layout grid and frame grids (screen only)) shows or hides the page layout grid and frame grids together.

Related questions

• How do I set up a layout grid (characters × lines) for the whole page?
• Can the margins come from the layout grid?
• How do I hide the grid?