Page layout

Page layout or layout is the term that used to describe how each page of your website will appear to the users. In word processing and desktop publishing, layout refers to the arrangement of text and graphics. The layout of a document can determine which points are emphasized, and whether the document is aesthetically pleasing.

Typical page layout include:

• Size of page margins
• Size and position of images and figures
• Deciding on the number and size of columns and gutters (gaps between columns)
• Placement of intentional white-space
• Use of special effects like overlaying text on an image, runaround and intrusions, or bleeding an image over the page margin
• Use of color printing or spot color for emphasis

Specific elements to be laid out might include:

• Chapter or section titles, or headlines and subheads
• Image captions
• Pull quotes and nut graphs which might be added out of course or to make a short story fit the layout
• Boxouts and sidebars, which present information as asides from the main text flow
• Page headers and page footers, the contents of which are usually uniform across content pages and thus automatically duplicated by layout software. The page number is usually included
• in the header or footer, and software automatically increments it for each page.
• Table of contents
• Notes like footnotes and end notes; bibliography, for example in academic journals or textbooks

In newspaper production, final selection and cropping of photographs accompanying stories might be left to the layout editor (since the choice of photo could affect the shape of the area needed, and thus the rest of the layout), or there might be a separate photo editor. Likewise, headlines might be written by the layout editor, a copy editor, or the original author.

To make stories fit the final layout, relatively inconsequential copy tweaks might be made (for example, rephrasing for brevity), or the layout editor might make slight adjustments to typography elements like font size or leading.