[XeTeX] Line-breaking algorithms in XeTeX

John Was john.was at ntlworld.com
Mon Apr 27 09:46:57 CEST 2009


Hello Pander

Though I've minimal experience of python scripts, that would certainly be of 
interest (and I hope to others on the list - if not, apologies for clogging 
up the traffic).  I've sometimes found myself experimenting rather ineptly 
with \spacefactor until I hit on something that looks more or less OK, but 
it's not a scientific approach.

Best


John


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pander" <pander at users.sourceforge.net>
To: "Unicode-based TeX for Mac OS X and other platforms" <xetex at tug.org>
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2009 8:33 AM
Subject: Re: [XeTeX] Line-breaking algorithms in XeTeX


> John Was wrote:
>> Dear All
>>
>> Since starting to use (plain) XeTeX I've noticed something strange with
>> the paragraphing/line-breaking mechanism which has never happened during
>> the ten years or so during which I have used traditional TeX.  It is
>> cropping up in the fourth issue of a periodical that I have set with
>> XeTeX, so I'm pretty sure that it's not a random fluke.
>>
>> (1) I sometimes get an overfull rule (i.e. rectangular box) at the
>> right-hand side which will disappear when I either (a) attach the word
>> causing the problem to the next word with ~, forcing it over (I
>> sometimes have to put the word in an \hbox{} as well); or (b) when I
>> increase the line-count by giving \looseness1 for the paragraph.  In the
>> past, plain TeX would always make such decisions for itself and never
>> generate an overfull rule when it could find a way to justify the
>> paragraph without doing so.  This happens most frequently in the reviews
>> section of the periodical, where  \looseness is set to -1 by default to
>> save as much space as possible:  but until I started to use XeTeX, it
>> was always the case that if the paragraph could not lose a line, then
>> the negative looseness was ignored and the paragraph was set
>> successfully with normal looseness  (i.e. \looseness = 0).  It was never
>> (I think) the case that a tight looseness which generated an overfull
>> box would get through and need manual intervention from me.  So has
>> something altered in the way XeTeX is handling the line-breaks, giving
>> priority to the looseness command even at the expense of generating an
>> overfull rule, and even when zero looseness would cause that error to
>> disappear?
>>
>> (2) This is even more puzzling (and more of an nuisance).  For the
>> purpose of sending contributors proofs of their reviews I start each
>> review on a new page so that they don't also receive the tops and tails
>> of adjacent reviews, but while initially typesetting I have the reviews
>> running on consecutively, as they will do in the final published
>> version.  There is a switch at the end of each review which generates a
>> \vfill \eject when \ifseparatereviews is true, otherwise it just
>> produces a \vskip: there is no other difference.  Yet I sometimes get
>> overfull rules showing up (at random points) when the reviews are
>> separated out, even though the same paragraph typeset without error
>> while the reviews were set to run on continuously.  The problem almost
>> (but not entirely) disappears if I double the \hfuzz when the
>> \ifseparatereviews switch is true, but that is no more than a quick fix
>> to prevent authors receiving proofs with worrying blobs at the
>> right-hand side.  This seems incomprehensible, but as it has happened
>> with four out of four periodical issues I can't be imagining it - and
>> the commands are precisely the same as the ones I used when the
>> periodical was typeset using traditional plain TeX, with no new
>> parameters such as alteration to \spaceskip or anything else that might
>> cause this to happen.
>>
>> (1) and (2) seem likely to be part of the same problem (though not
>> necessarily so).  Any ideas, or at least insight into what XeTeX is
>> doing that old plain TeX didn't?
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>>
>> John
>
> Hi all,
>
> Slightly related is something I have made. Sometimes you have some
> freedom of choice in font and in the dimensions of the margins of the
> work you are about to make. Each selection will have a different amount 
> of:
> - Overfull
> - Underfull
> - hyphenation exceptions
>
> I have made a python script that, via exhaustive enumeration, will find
> the optimum settings for a minimum amount of occurrences of the list
> above. Using those optimal settings could be a smarter starting point
> for fixing widows, orphans and hyphenation exceptions.
>
> If someone is interested in this script. please contact me.
>
> Regards,
>
> Pander
>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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