Set text composition

Text composition affects how InDesign handles spacing, hyphenation, and line breaks across paragraphs. Use different composition methods and set preferences to influence how text reflows and how evenly it appears in a layout.

Select a composition method

Set composition preferences

Text composition methods

When you work with text in InDesign, the application continuously decides where lines break, how spacing is distributed, and when hyphenation occurs. This process, called composition, directly affects readability and the visual consistency of your text.

How composition methods work

InDesign provides two composition methods that evaluate potential line breaks based on your hyphenation and justification settings. These settings define acceptable ranges for word spacing, letter spacing, glyph scaling, and hyphenation. The composer then selects the best solution within those limits.

The key difference between the methods, Adobe Paragraph Composer and Adobe Single-line Composer, is scope. One considers the entire paragraph, while the other evaluates text line by line. The method you select influences how edits affect surrounding lines.

Adobe Paragraph Composer

Adobe Paragraph Composer, the default option, evaluates all lines in a paragraph together. It can adjust earlier lines to prevent poor breaks later in the paragraph, resulting in more even spacing and fewer hyphens overall.

This method typically produces more consistent text color and smoother paragraphs. It’s best suited for long-form content such as books, articles, and magazines, where overall paragraph quality is more important than controlling individual line breaks.

Adobe Single-line Composer

Adobe Single-line Composer composes text one line at a time. Each line is finalized before the next is evaluated, without considering how decisions affect later lines.

Because changes tend to affect fewer subsequent lines compared to Paragraph Composer, this method is useful for headlines, pull quotes, and short text where precise control over line breaks is important. The trade-off is less consistent spacing and potentially more hyphenation.

Japanese composition methods

InDesign also includes Japanese Single-line and Japanese Paragraph composers, designed for Japanese typography. These follow the same line-by-line and paragraph-based principles but apply Japanese-specific rules for line breaking, spacing, and character placement.