Hanging punctuation creates a uniform edge for a block of text in your design. Hanging punctuation places the punctuation outside the margins — outside the left or right alignment of the rest of the text. The punctuation marks, such as quotation marks, hyphens, and ending punctuation floats or hangs in the margin creating a more visually pleasing text alignment.
How to Hang your Punctuation in Adobe
InDesign:
Select a text frame, or click anywhere in the story.
Choose Type > Story.
Select Optical Margin Alignment.
Select a font size to set the appropriate amount of overhang for the size of type in your story. For optimal results, use the same size as the text.
To turn off Optical Margin Alignment for an individual paragraph, choose Ignore Optical Margin from the Paragraph panel menu or Control panel menu.
Illustrator:
To turn on Roman hanging punctuation, open the Paragraph tool panel, and click on the arrow on the upper right of the box. A drop-down menu will appear in which you can choose “Roman Hanging Punctuation.”
Keep in mind that you can turn on or off the Roman Hanging Punctuation for entire blocks of text. Just select the blocks of text and use the same drop-down menu to change the setting.
Photoshop:
Select a type layer if you want all the paragraphs in that type layer to be affected.
Select the paragraphs you want affected.
Choose Roman Hanging Punctuation from the Paragraph panel menu. A check mark indicates that the option is selected.