Left and right margins/padding

      +----------------------------+  
      |                            |  
      | text in a box              |  
      |                            |  
      +----------------------------+  
  
      text outside of a box  
  
      +----------- OR -------------+  
  
      +----------------------------+  
      |                            |  
      | text in a box              |  
      |                            |  
      +----------------------------+  
  
        text outside of a box  

It’s the age-old question of how things should line up. Should non-boxed text line up with box edges or should text always line up with text? People will argue either way.

If you go with the second version (where text should line up with text), you’ll need to account for that in your grid planning. Consistency is key if you don’t want text to look misaligned.

Another option is to use your columnar grid if possible. Put the box on the grid and apply margins/padding to the internal content so that there’s a full column width on each side. The spacing usually looks beautiful and simplifies the amount of work required. With grid, you probably don’t need horizontal spacing as much as you used to with other positioning methods.