[listeruk]

please could you someone help?? I am confused when best to use hard returns or soft returns in quark?

[Jimjam79]

A hard return is a complete return that starts a new paragraph ie. if you're using space after/before in Quark it will place space after/before this new paragraph.
A soft return is when you want to move the text on to a new line, but you do not want it to start a new paragraph.
My default is that I always tend to use Hard return unless the situation/design makes the use of this difficult or slow. I've found that the best time to use soft return is when you are using many space afters/befores or you wish to set up the paragraph to rule below or above in which case you use soft return until you reach a place where you want your rule/space and then when you use a hard return it automatically knows when to put the rule or space in!
Hope that makes sense, its only when you come to explain it to someone else it becomes difficult!

[lister110]

So on a headline then a sub headline you would use hard returns, on line breaks in paragraphs you use soft returns?
Here is another question I hope someone could help, when is it best to use space before or space after?

[mystery_stain]

No, you should format spacing with space-before and space-after, not with soft returns. Soft returns are a last resort. Make style sheets for your heads and paragraphs and code the before/after spacing into them so they stay consistent. If you're not using style sheets you're working harder than you have to and the crude spacing (whole lines, not precise amounts) will be easy to spot in your portfolio. This is formatting 101 for Word, Quark, InDesign, PageMaker, etc Even in web design where CSS spacing is recommended over line breaks. You might want to read Real World QuarkXPress or a book like it.

[lister110]

but what is best to use space before or space after, why have both?

[mystery_stain]

Because of your design. Say you have like a bullet list and it has to have extra space before first bullet and after the last bullet. If you can only use space before, then you have to add the space after the last bullet to the paragraph after the last bullet but that paragraph is not part of the list, so what happens if you move that paragraph? The spacing is lost, and that's obviously wacked. With both before and after available you can attach the spacing to the thing it really goes with. Especially flexible if you are using style sheets.

[Jimjam79]

The truth is the way we work is completly personal to us! If I decide to use alot of soft returns in my work is does not mean that you should also! You can get away with not using soft returns at all so why bother with them? As I have explained, I personally only ever use soft returns when I am using paragraphs that need to have space before or after, it saves time going through and individually putting space after each paragraph, I just select the lot and heh presto!
Find what works best for you and stick with it! As long as it causes no problems for the Platemaker and Press guys, who cares?