[pmwiki-users] New Recipe: IntuitiveSpacing

marc gmane at auxbuss.com
Thu Mar 15 15:40:27 CDT 2007


Ben Wilson said...
> On 3/15/07, Hans <design5 at softflow.co.uk> wrote:
> > See http://www.pmwiki.org/wiki/Cookbook/IntuitiveSpacing
> 
> I'm a bit of a format fanatic. I've started using TeX for writing
> documents, although TeX can be a little _too_ fanatic for me. :-)

Crikey! I'd move quickly to LaTeX and save yourself a lot of pain ;-) I 
made the move almost twenty years ago and never looked back.

> Anyway, I ran across a web site that describes the "standard"
> typesetting rules.[1] As a result, I've started forcing formatting in
> accordance with those rules.[2]

You need to be a bit careful, because typesetting rules vary from 
country to country. And, of course, you will ''never'' get agreement on 
the ''right'' way. (You can see this all the time here. Patrick, I've 
noticed, is fairly thorough at following the US rules, whereas I try to 
adhere to the British rules. I say fairly, because, well, you'll know 
why if this interests you :-) )

Actually, since you're now a TeX guru, you can try formatting a doc with 
the csquotes package and alter the language via babel to automate the 
process :-)

> I manifest these rules in paragraph
> indentation, line-spacing, line-width, vertical spacing of headings,
> etc. If you're using Firefox, try printing out the url in footnote 2,
> and you'll see how these rules extend to printing.[3] So, I tend to
> stand opposite of literal whitespacing.

I think that anyone with a modicum of typesetting exposure will think 
the same way, but, of course, there are some pragmatic reasons for 
taking that approach in a limited set of circumstances.

It's a bit like object orientation: you ''can'' write to concrete 
classes - and it will work - but by writing to interfaces, you gain so 
much more, but understanding why takes a bit of experience.

> That said, the recipe looks great! My only recommendation is to
> shorten the 'ws' rules.

Certainly, despite my pedantry,, I'd hate Hans to think that I'm 
criticizing his recipe.

-- 
Cheers,
Marc




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