Use the Paragraph pane of the Preferences dialog box (QuarkXPress/Edit menu) to control various paragraph-level settings.

Use the Auto Leading feature to automatically set line spacing. You can apply this setting to a paragraph by entering “auto” or “0″ in the Leading field of the Paragraph Attributes dialog box (Style > Leading). Unlike paragraphs with absolute leading (identical line spacing above every line), paragraphs with auto leading may include lines with different leading when fonts and font sizes are mixed in the same paragraph.

Auto leading starts with a base amount of leading, which QuarkXPress calculates by examining the ascent and descent values built into the fonts used in an auto-leaded line and the line above it; however, the user-specified text size (Style > Size) plays the largest part in determining this base amount. Finally, a value specified by the user in the Auto Leading field is added to the base amount to arrive at the total amount of leading.

To specify percentage-based auto leading, enter a value from 0% to 100% in 1% increments. This value determines the amount of leading between two lines of text as follows: The largest font size in the line above is multiplied by the percentage value. This outcome is added to the base amount of auto leading between the two lines. Although the design of certain fonts complicates the process, here is a simplified example: 10-point text styled consistently in a “standard” font with Auto Leading set to 20% has 12 points of leading (10 pts + [20% of 10] = 12 pts). To specify incremental auto leading, enter a value preceded by a plus sign (+) or a minus sign (–) from –63 points to +63 points using any measurement system. Entering “+5″ will add 5 points of leading to the base amount of auto leading; entering “+5 mm” will add 5 millimeters.

Use the Maintain Leading check box to control the placement of a line of text that falls immediately below an obstruction in a column or box. If Maintain Leading is checked, the line’s baseline is placed according to its applied leading value. If Maintain Leading is unchecked, the ascent of the line will abut the bottom of the obstruction or any applied runaround value (Item > Runaround).

In the Lock to Grid Based On area:

• Click Ascent and Descent to lock text to grid based on the ascenders and descenders of characters.
• Click Font Size (Em Box) to lock text to grid based on the size of the em boxes of the characters.

For each language in the Hyphenation list, use the Method drop-down menu in the Hyphenation area to specify the method QuarkXPress uses to automatically hyphenate paragraphs when no corresponding entry is found in your Hyphenation Exceptions dictionary. The setting you choose affects only paragraphs for which Auto Hyphenation (Edit > H&Js) is enabled:

• Choose Standard to hyphenate using the algorithm built into versions of QuarkXPress prior to 3.1. Documents created in versions of QuarkXPress prior to 3.1 default to Standard when they are opened in version 3.1 or later.
• Choose Enhanced to hyphenate using the algorithm built into QuarkXPress version 3.1 and later.
• Extended 2 uses the same algorithm as Enhanced but checks any built-in hyphenation dictionaries before resorting to the algorithm. Extended 2 uses the Dieckmann exception resources and algorithm for hyphenation. This option was first introduced in QuarkXPress 4.11 for German (Reformed) and has been expanded to other languages in more recent versions. If available for a language, it is the default method for projects created in QuarkXPress.