About composition methods


    Illustrator offers two composition methods: the Adobe Every-line Composer and the Adobe Single-line Composer. Both methods evaluate possible breaks and choose the one that best supports the hyphenation and justification options you've specified for a given paragraph.

    Every-line Composer

    Considers a network of break points for a range of lines and thus can optimize earlier lines in the paragraph in order to eliminate especially unattractive breaks later on.

    The Every-line composer approaches composition by identifying possible break points, evaluating them, and assigning a weighted penalty based on the following principles:

    • For left-, right-, or center-aligned text, lines that fall closer to the right side are favored and have a lower penalty.
    • For justified text, the highest importance is given to evenness of letter and word spacing.
    • Hyphenation is avoided when possible.

    Single-line Composer

    Offers a traditional approach to composing type one line at a time. This option is useful if you prefer to have manual control over how lines break. The Single-line composer uses the following principles when considering a breakpoint:

    • Longer lines are favored over shorter lines.
    • For justified text, compressed or expanded word spacing is preferable to hyphenation.
    • Hyphenation is preferable to compressed or expanded letter spacing.
    • If spacing must be adjusted, compression is better than expansion.