[Tuglist] Fwd: A typographer's wishlist
Amitabh Trehan
tuglist@gnu.org.in
Tue, 26 Jun 2001 00:28:42 -0700 (PDT)
Hi,
I found this pretty interesting ;-
--- Karel Skoupy <skoupy@INFORMATICS.MUNI.CZ> wrote:
> Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 17:57:03 +0100
> Reply-to: NTS-L Distribution list
> <NTS-L@URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
> From: Karel Skoupy <skoupy@INFORMATICS.MUNI.CZ>
> Subject: A typographer's wishlist
> To: Multiple recipients of list NTS-L
> <NTS-L@URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
>
> Hello again,
>
> When it comes to typesetting alot of inherent
> qualities of hand composition
> and machine composition was lost when the industry
> switched to computerized
> composition. Admittedly, some was gained but there's
> still a lot of things
> to improve. Some of these machine composition
> qualities disappeared due to
> the fact that computer staff with little or no
> typographic knowledge
> suddenly got the jobs that the typographers and
> compositors had before, and
> they didn't implement those features. Other
> qualities have been due to
> hardware or software limitations. For example, TeX
> puts more space after a
> dot in the end of a sentence before the next
> sentence begins (which it
> should). Monotype hot-metal composition could do
> that ca 1930 but modern DTP
> programs still can't do it. It is the same thing
> with hanging punctuation -
> Monotype hot-metal composition could do it very
> early this century, but it
> was not until the software Adobe InDesign arrived
> that consumer software
> could do it. If you have worked with Monotype
> composition and hand
> composition chills go up and down your spin when you
> look at the crude
> typesetting you get from QuarkXPress, InDesign etc.
>
> Disregarding from my lack of knowledge what can be
> actually implemented in
> TeX/NTS, my first thoughts about quality in
> typesetting include the
> following items (no special order). I know that some
> of these things can be
> done in TeX, while others are only a typographer's
> wishes.
>
> - Hanging punctuation and a way to set to what
> percentage a character should
> be hung, e.g. a comma probably 80 % and a hyphen
> probably around 50 %.
>
> - Short line elimination (if the program encounters
> a closing line less than
> n words, it should try to put say 1/200 part of an
> em space between the
> characters in all words in that paragraph to get the
> desired number of words
> in a closing line). However, it should not be
> allowed to insert more
> intra-character space than perhaps a couple of 200th
> parts of an emspace
> since intracharacter space is sacred (unless you
> letter-space small capitals
> or upper case capitals).
>
> - A method for the software to control that
> "lightness" is positioned in the
> statistically best way on the page - e.g. if the
> software notices that the
> spaces between two sentences or after a comma are
> more or less on top of
> each other in two lines (or that two identical words
> are), it should try to
> adjust by inserting a 1/200 part of an em space
> between the characters in
> the words of some preceding lines.
>
> - Maximum number of hyphens, whether words starting
> with a capital should be
> hyphenated and a way to set that the software should
> prioritize EITHER
> keeping wordspaces at an optimum, OR keeping the max
> number of hyphens below
> a set value.
>
> - True positioning of drop intial capitals (not any
> DTP software on the
> market does it right nowadays).
>
> - Dieckman hyphenation algorithms as standard and
> the option for some kind
> of possibility to connect the typesetting engine to
> a simple, user-defined
> ASCII text files where the user himself can write
> hyphenations of words that
> TeX/NTS reads.
>
> - Widow/orphan control and a way to set if the
> software should either leave
> that line blank (all DTP software do) or insert a
> minimum space of perhaps
> 1/200 of an em space between the characters in the
> preceding paragraph, or
> page or chapter to prevent the widow/orphan.
>
> - A way to set minimum number of lines in a starting
> paragraph at the bottom
> of a page or a closing paragraph at the top of a
> page.
>
> - A way to set in what order the software should
> deal with the complete text
> matter. For example, does the user want to
> prioritize the lack of
> widows/orphans or does he want to prioritize optimum
> intra-word space or
> does he want to prioritize that consecutive hyphens
> are below a certain
> number? He should be able to set these parameters
> and define what he thinks
> is most important since no software can meet all
> parameters. But TeX meets
> more than any DTP software on the market today.
>
> - A way to get a warning if one or more set
> parameters can't be met by the
> software AND a way to give further instructions or
> prioritizations what the
> software should do.
>
> - A default setting so that a thin space (1/18th of
> an em) is put before
> colons, commas, semicolons, exclamation marks,
> questions marks.
>
> - Italic correction (as far as I understand TeX does
> this).
>
>
>
> There are many other things but these are the one I
> came to think about
> right now.
>
> Best regards,
> Mats Broberg
> Technical writer & graphic designer
> ---------------------------------------------
> Telephone: +46 8 753 26 84
> ---------------------------------------------
> FLIR Systems AB
> P.O. Box 3
> SE-182 11 Danderyd
> SWEDEN
> ---------------------------------------------
> http://www.flir.com
> ---------------------------------------------
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