Block quotations · Typographic North

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Block quotations

Block quotations should be clearly separated from the surrounding text.

I admit I keep doing many just out of habit. The way I set block quotations in longer texts is one of those things I haven’t really thought much about since I learned how to do them.

And I primarily do them this way:

When a quote in the text spans three lines or more in a paragraph, I extract it and set it as a block quotation.
I set the size 1 point smaller than the body text (so, a 10-point quotation after an 11-point paragraph).
I use the same leading as the paragraph text.
I indent 1 em on both the left and the right side (usually I indent every paragraph 1 em as well).
I add a white line before and after the quotation.
I keep quotation marks in the quote.

Sometimes, variants sneak in. In more commercial folders and marketing material, I can experiment wildly. But in books, these are the rules I seem to stick by.

How do you set your block quotes?

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