Practical Typography

Write as though the reader is looking for any excuse to bail.

Quotes in traditional typography are curly. Word processors can do this for you and scripts/tooling exist to correct it (ex. from Markdown.)

Use one space after all punctuations.

Sideways emoticons should match the direction of the language.

Consider emojis for casual writing but not formal documents.

Use semicolons to separate lists which include commas and for conjunctions between sentences.

Non-breaking spaces should be used to keep symbols attached to what they reference. Ex. section symbol needs it so it does not line break and stays with the cited section number. HTML code  

Paragraph marks are for citing document with numbered paragraphs.

Section marks are for citing documents with numbered sections.

Don't format the parenthesis, brackets, and braces, which surround a formatted object. Unless the letters are crashing in to the braces

Use hyphens to separate syllables.

Use en-dashes to separate ranges or contrasting words. But not if you use another separate (ex. from-to.) You can say 1990-1995 or from 1990 to 1995 but not from 1990-1995.

Use em-dashes to inject pauses in a sentence without breaking it.

Ampersands are a contraction for "and," and are informal although they are valid when part of a proper name.

Ellipsis characters are used to denote content has been omitted from a citation.

Apostrophes represent where characters have been removed in a contraction.

Minute and Second markers ' and " have proper names "prime" and "double prime." They are supposed to be slightly slanted. Straight quotes are acceptable if required although HTML does have the codes ′ and ″ to get the official symbols.

Thin Spaces are useful to separate words that are related when a normal space is too large. Mostly for replacing the space after a period in acronyms or proper names. HTML calls it   For example B. A. Baracas.

Hard Line Breaks seek to force a line break that does not create a new paragraph.

Use actual mathematical symbols where you can.

Ligatures: special rule where two or more characters are replaced with another glyph. For example merging two f's together.

Underlining is an artifact of typewriters and not necessary when typographical options are available.

Emphasis is best used for short segments and never entire paragraphs.

Headings are to make it easier to navigate an argument.

Kerning is a ruleset that forces two characters to be spaced differently; it aims to prevent weird legibility issues between to specific glyphs.

Knockout type: white glyphs on a black background.

To get the most vibrant-looking red, use an old printer’s trick—make it slightly orange.

Small Caps is an alternative to bold and italics for emphasis but is tricky to use. Often it will be synthesized. Some fonts include proper small caps are an OpenType feature or as an alternative typeface.

Documents should generally avoid more than two unique typefaces.

Choose first line indent or extra space between paragraphs; not both.

Line spacing should be 120%-145% of the font's point size.

Avoid ultra-long lines.

Professional typography uses paper sized to comfortable sized columns but home printing can't always do this. Use page margins to make the text comfortable to read or use multiple columns.

Hyphenation is needed for justified text; except where the text is a heading and is short and the hyphens look bad.

Widows and orphans: when text falls off the page on to a new one yet takes up less than a full line of text. More sentences can be pushed so there is more whitespace before the break and more lines on the new break.

Keep lines together: use for special cases (ex. multiple options on a form to be filled out.)

Keep with next paragraph: use this to keep headers with their text so a header does not end up alone.

Team projects: approval authority should be a small group. Requiring consensus is the death of creativity.