Hanging Punctuation in InDesign

When try­ing to achieve a clean edge on the type in your para­graph, one must push the open­ing punc­tu­a­tion (typ­i­cal­ly an open-quote) beyond the ver­ti­cal visu­al line of alignment–make the pun­cu­tu­a­tion “hang”.

“Hanging pun­cu­ta­tion” is astound­ing­ly sim­ple in InDesign. First, select the text frame, then go to the Story palette (if it’s not in your work­space, bring it up by men­u­ing Window>Type & Tables>Story) and check the “Optical Margin Alignment” check­box on that palette. The pro­gram will do the rest, and straight away.