Hanging punctuation

Hanging punctuation, also known as optical margin alignment, can be traced back all the way to the 1400s and Gutenberg's Bible. This method sets punctuation marks outside the margins of a body of text.

The rationale is to balance the visual flow of the text. If a line starts with a character like an opening quotation mark, it leaves a lot of vertical spacing, disrupting the flow. "Hanging" punctuation marks, such as quotation marks (” “ ’ ‘) and hyphens (– —), outside of the margins creates the appearance of a uniform edge and improves the optical flow. You can hang punctuation in left-aligned, right-aligned, or justified text.^[1]