microtypographylisted

# Microtypography The layer below font choice. When a page feels amateur despite a good typeface, the defect is almost always here. Hochuli's subject: *"all the small things that enhance the legibility of texts."* ## 1. When to invoke - Text is set correctly by every macro rule and still reads badly. - Uneven word spacing, visible rivers, ragged edges that clump. - Orphans, widows, a heading stranded at a column foot. - Wrong apostrophes, hyphens standing in for dashes, cramped capitals. - Someone says the work looks "generic", "cheap", or "AI-generated." **Do not** invoke to pick a typeface (`typeface-selection`) or set a scale (`hierarchy-and-scale`). ## 2. Required context - The **rendered** text — microtypography cannot be judged from source. - Whether setting is **justified or ragged**, and the measure in characters. - Whether the text is **user-generated** (you cannot hand-fix it — the rules must be systemic). - Language and script — spacing conventions are not universal. - Whether the typeface carries the needed OpenType features (real small caps, oldstyle figures, proper kerning pairs). ## 3. Invariant principles - **Word spaces should be even and unobtrusive.** They separate words; they should not be seen as shapes in their own right. - **Rivers are defects.** When word spaces in successive lines fall under one another they form vertical channels that "disturb the flow of the text"; the make-up should be adjusted to remove them. (Hochuli) - **Justif