Multilingual Typesetting Note: Clarifying Paragraph Boundaries

What do you think of this typesetting?

This typesetting can be read normally for now. However, as you continue reading, you may start to feel uncomfortable with the lack of contrast. What should be fixed and how in order to improve it?

Negative Points

The difficulty with this typesetting is that the boundaries of paragraphs are unclear. Since there is no change at the beginning of the line, it is not immediately clear where the paragraph begins. Additionally, even if there is a full stop (period) at the end of the line, it may not necessarily be the end of the paragraph. Furthermore, if a long word at the end of the line is broken and a short line is created, it may appear as if that is the boundary of the paragraph, even if it is not the end of the sentence. This has a negative impact on the readability and ease of understanding of the text.

Improvement Plan 1: Indent the first line

Let's make the boundaries of the paragraphs clear. One solution is indentation. The first paragraph and the paragraph immediately after the heading do not need indentation because it is obvious that the text starts from there. Indentation is used from the second paragraph onwards. Unlike the improvement plan 2 mentioned later, it is suitable for book typesetting because it can be read comfortably without disrupting the rhythm with a constant line spacing. It is also suitable for newspaper typesetting because it is space-saving.

Due to the impact of font, font size, line width, and line spacing, it is difficult to uniformly determine "how many mm to decrease the font size by if it is a certain pt size". The starting point is the font size, so if it is 10pt, adjust the indent width from 10pt and find the minimum indent width that can be recognized as the boundary of a paragraph. Avoid using excessive spaces, full-width spaces, or tabs for indentation, and instead set the indent width in the paragraph style.

Improvement Plan 2: Add spacing between paragraphs

Another solution is to add space between paragraphs. If there is only one line, it is common to have half a line of space. This may cause the baseline to not align between left and right pages, but it is not a concern. Instead of adding a blank line, set the paragraph style to have space before the paragraph. This is to avoid unexpected blank lines at the top of the page when the amount of text changes.

I think it is more appropriate to have a space between paragraphs rather than indenting in product manuals and instructional texts. This is because they often have a structure such as "heading → body", "figure → explanation", and "screen → procedure", and it is more important to prioritize the organization of each item rather than a comfortable reading experience.

Avoid using both improvement plans 1 and 2 together

Indentation and paragraph spacing are similar to the relationship between a belt and suspenders and are mutually exclusive. It is strange to use both, so we will only use one of them.

Other than English

Japanese

1 indent. Unlike English, it is common to indent the first paragraph as well. I don't think indenting is necessary when spacing between paragraphs.

Chinese

2 spaces indent. Unlike English, the first paragraph is also indented. Personally, I don't think indentation is necessary when there is a space between paragraphs, but in reality, there are many cases where 2 spaces indentation is used. Also, it seems that 1 space indentation in Japanese looks very awkward to Chinese people, and it is said that it is better not to indent at all than to indent by 1 space. When typesetting Chinese, let's switch our mindset from the Japanese sense.