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Hanging Punctuation

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Hanging (or hung) punctuation refers to the practice of extending certain punctuation marks into the margin of a flush edge of text, to give the appearance of a more uniform vertical alignment. Punctuation marks that are typically hung include periods, commas, hyphens, dashes, quotation marks and asterisks. These, and any other mark that does not have a continuous vertical mass, can cause a visual “hole” or indentation in the flush edge. Hung punctuation is commonly used for body text, but should also be applied to headings, subheads, pull quotes – in fact, to any block of text intended to have a flush edge, whether flush left, flush right, or justified.

Hanging Punctuation
(Upper) When punctuation is not hung, the line beginning with double quotes, as well as the lines ending with a hyphen or comma, appear to be indented slightly, disrupting the appearance of uniform margin alignment. (Lower) Hanging the punctuation, by extending these characters into the margin, fills in those negative spaces, improving alignment. Excerpt from A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens.


Hanging punctuation is generally considered a sophisticated typographic technique. Prior to digital typography, this practice was frequently applied by experienced typographers whose sole job was to set type. In early days of the digital age and desktop typesetting, hung punctuation became less standard, as it had to be created manually. This was a tedious undertaking, because design software was relatively unsophisticated with regard to hanging punctuation.

Hanging Punctuation
Punctuation marks commonly hung into the margin include glyphs without much vertical mass. When not hung, they tend to cause an optical hole in an otherwise uniform alignment.


Today, tremendous advances in the typographic capabilities of design software offer an effect similar to hung punctuation, by visually aligning the margins of flush text. Enabling and applying the Optical Margin Alignment feature will not only hang the appropriate punctuation outside the text frame, but also adjust other characters that can disturb alignment, including A, T, V, W, Y, and in some instances the numeral 1. This feature is adjustable in most design software, allowing fine control of the amount of overhang – from punctuation being completely extended into the margin, like traditional hung punctuation, down to any lesser degree of overhang.

Hanging Punctuation
(Upper) When characters such as T, A, and W appear at the beginning of a line in a block of flush text, they can sometimes appear to be slightly indented. Although they are mechanically aligned on the left edge of the glyph, they are not optically so. (Lower) The use of the Optical Margin Alignment feature that is available in some design software can automatically remedy this situation. Non-sequential excerpts from A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens.


For typography to have a clean, uniform appearance, consider the alignment of your text margins. Hanging punctuation and other problematic characters is widely viewed as the “gold standard” in well-set typography, allowing any body of text to appear balanced, inviting and unfettered by visual distractions.

Hanging Punctuation
(Left) When mechanically aligned under the H, the characters shown here appear to be indented. This is especially apparent when they are set at a large size. (Right) Pulling them slightly into the margin improves optical alignment.


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Ilene Strizver
  • Editor’s Note:Ilene Strizver, founder of The Type Studio, is a typographic consultant, designer and writer specializing in all aspects of typographic communication. She conducts Gourmet Typography workshops internationally. Read more about typography in her latest literary effort, Type Rules! The designer's guide to professional typography, 4th edition, published by Wiley & Sons, Inc. This article was commissioned and approved by Monotype Imaging Inc.
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