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On 2013-08-17 4:39 PM Brian Barker wrote:(You are now talking received messages
again, right?) Correct - but also even if the text was
formatted, in fact. In the case of this mailing list, for
example, only the plain text version of what you send is
distributed, so your formatting is lost before your text reaches
anyone.Does this list strip HTML messages?
Hi 
Superb! :) I really liked that answer! Sometimes i get too stuffy and serious on this list so it's good to see this sort of thing :) Also if it was genuine, then it's good to see that we can all disagree but still get on with helping people.
Thanks and regards from
Tom
Thanks Tim, exactly what I was trying to express as briefly as possible.
Brian, the spoken word is more important and critical than the written word, in initial development of the human being. I don't have to be a psychologist to know that, just observed the growth of my children. So if we are taught correctly, we learn to firstly speak, then are taught to use our breathing, with pauses as we move on to read and understand any written text. Many teachers, and all of the ones I have been taught by, and my children taught by, have emphasised and enforced this. One does not have to be a public speaker, as this process starts from the first time all of us start to read and write at entry level school, and possibly prior to that from our parents, in reading aloud to an audience. So it starts there, and then progresses in the way we should be reading, and writing.
And yes I can breath and read at the same time, that's not the real point. And the true purpose of punctuation, is for reading both vocally and in the mind, in that order, the one cannot be divorced from the other.
And as to plain text it still has a font, mainly a sans serif one, even if not identified. In the old early days of computer, in whatever they were, it was a rudimentary machine font, I'm under correction, but much like Fixedsys. Microsoft then created their own font, called Microsoft sans serif and MS sans serif, almost identical but with some subtle differences. all of this was related to the poor screen/display technologies of the time. Today even in a plain text document one can choose any font of choice now, and correctly covered by Tim, in email clients. As to the font right now I am typing in, is in Mozilla Thunderbird, and the font is Colibri, a sans serif one, which is the default one for Thunderbird, under Windows 7 that is.
Regards
Andrew Brown
[...]
And the true purpose of punctuation, is for reading both vocally and in the mind, in that order, the one cannot be divorced from the other.
[...]
German requires a comma between main clauses and subordinate clauses, for instance:
"ich sehe, dass er redet" or "I see that he's talking."
there is no breath between those clauses in German or English.
German also capitalizes every noun; what aspect of vocalization is that supposed to correspond to? apostrophes aren't vocalized either.
two different media, speech and written word, one for the eye, one for the ear.
f.
Thanks Tim, exactly what I was trying to express as briefly as possible.
Even though most of what he said was wrong?
Brian, the spoken word is more important and critical than the written word, ...
So you are not talking about punctuation like the rest of us, then - which occurs only in written text (unless you are Victor Borge, that is)? (And I fear devotees of the Torah, the Bible, the Qur'an, and a hundred other similar texts would dispute your suggestion anyway!)
[Snipped: rest of paragraph talking about pauses in speaking, nothing about punctuation.]
And yes I can breath[e] and read at the same time, that's not the real point.
For those of us who read without moving our lips, it is.
And the true purpose of punctuation, is for reading both vocally and in the mind, in that order, the one cannot be divorced from the other.
The purpose of punctuation is for reading? Well, yes: if you don't read the message you don't need the punctuation! (Otherwise, this says nothing.)
And as to plain text it still has a font, ...
Sorry, but that's plain nonsense. In order to display plain text, you need to use a font. But you can choose any font, and that font is your choice (or your software's), not part of the plain text. What do you think "plain" means here?
Today even in a plain text document one can choose any font ...
Exactly: which proves the point that the plain text itself does *not* have a font.
... and correctly covered by Tim, ...
As I say (and explained separately), he was mainly incorrect, in fact.
As to the font right now I am typing in, is in Mozilla Thunderbird, and the font is Colibri, a sans serif one, ...
That's what you are seeing, but this mailing list (for example) distributes only a plain text version of your message, which has lost this property.
See also Felmon Davis's excellent examples.
Brian Barker
LaTeX which is known as a standard with typography of technical and mathematical documents, use a wider space after the end of sentence point, than the space between words. Even more, the inter word space is dependent of the main font size (the optical size) and is stretchable.
That's why I don't accept the usual convention that don't use double space after the end of sentence point, because LibreOffice does not have way to insert end of sentence spaces.
I tried with autocorrect to insert a wider space from the corresponding unicode character, but autocorrect does not replace '. ' (dot space). So its useless.
LO does not replace [.][ ] with [.][another kind of space]. Probably because regular expressions only detect 'space' without any qualification.
I repeated the experiment.
LibreOffice 4.1.0.4
Linux Libertine G, 12 pt.
I wrote a name with a initial, with and without a dot. The space between words is highlighted to make clear its width.
To aling the two paragraphs, used a dot at the start of the first group of words. Both paragraphs are left aligned, therefore any change in space should be for a proportional space between after a dot different from the space between words. In this case, the space should be less than a normal space as in Dr._Name.
From the image 14, you can see that isn't any difference in spacing.
Repeating the experience with justification, the spacing is expanded a little, but I can't see clearly if its only after punctuations or also between words. Look at the second image (screenshot15).
Conclusion:
LibreOffice does not change the interword spacing in an intelligent manner as LaTeX does, being this software the best example of superb typography. So, if any typist use two spaces after and end of sentence dot, is in average reducing the interword spacing and increasing the end of sentence spacing in a visible manner.
Also, this problem is not also from an end of sentence. It is also, for the space after the titles (Mr.[space]name) and for the space after ':' and after ';'. It is also known that in France, must be a small space before the end of sentence dot.
Do you mean "does not"? (In which case I don't see where regular expressions come into it.) We'd probably not want it to. Or do you mean "cannot"? You can make this change using Find & Replace. You need to have "Regular expressions" off, of course - or to escape the dot by preceding it with a backslash. And you need to use a font that includes the space character you are trying to insert.
I trust this helps.
Brian Barker
While that is the default LaTeX setting, every time I use LaTeX, I insert the \frenchspacing command in my preamble, so that LaTeX will conform to the current generally accepted standard of using only a single word space after sentences.
While LaTeX produces beautiful results, it is a computing tool, not a typographic standard. The creator of the default behavior has, in fact, *deviated* from the "standard of typography" by ignoring the current standard of using only one word space after sentence ending punctuation.
I'm not saying everybody has to conform to the standard, but it would be somewhat naive to pretend that the standard doesn't exist.
I know I said I would let it go, but I just couldn't resist.
Virgil
Hi, Vigil,
So, if I read your message correctly, there is no official "body" that sets typographic standards, only general conventions used by most, but may not be the best for end user/reader. Would that be correct?
Not quite.
I agree there is no official body that sets typographic standards, at least none of which I am aware. I also agree that there are general conventions that are used by most professional typographers. I do *not* agree that these conventions "may not be best for the end user/reader."
I honestly believe that one word space between sentences is best for the reader. I honestly believe it facilitates the smooth flow of reading.
It might surprise you, but I was a slow convert to the "one space between sentences" convention. Like many here, I learned to type on an Underwood, with all the conventions that grew up with the typewriter. I learned to use 12-point Pica type, set one-inch page margins, indent paragraphs one half inch, double space my text, and put two spaces between sentences.
When I graduated to a Windows word processor with proportionally spaced type, I kept using all of these conventions. After all, after 25 years of typing everything the same way, it "looked" right. I then came across a series of typography articles that stated that these typing conventions were actually deviations from typographic standards. They grew as concessions to the fixed-width type of the typewriter and letter-sized paper. But, professional typesetters using proportionally spaced type typically didn't use the same conventions. When was the last time you saw a book set in 12 point type, double spaced lines with one-half inch indents?
I started examining the books I read with great reading comfort. *All* of them had type smaller than 12 points. *None* of them had double spaced lines or half-inch indents. They were *all* single spaced with paragraph indents of less than one half inch. And most of them, especially those printed after I was born, had only one word space after sentence ending punctuation.
So, if everything I learned in typing class was "right," how was it that all of these professionally published books got it wrong? More importantly, how was it that I was able to read all these books without stumbling over the words? They all looked just as "right" as my own papers that had been typed using typewriter conventions.
I learned that the typewriter standards were based on the fact that we were using letter-sized paper and fixed-width type. You'll notice books tend to have much smaller pages. Larger paper means longer text lines, which means larger type, and wider line spacing. Fixed-width type also requires more definition between paragraphs and sentences, hence half-inch indents and two spaces between sentences.
But, now we're beyond the Underwood technology. We're now using technology that mimics that of Gutenberg. It's time we left behind the shackles of the typewriter and embraced the better technology we can obtain.
For my work, I now use 11-point type, single space my text and use paragraph indents of no more than 1/3 inch (2 picas). I set my left and right margins at about 1.75 inches (9.5 to 10.5 picas), specifically to increase white space in the margins and shorten the length of my lines. And, following the example of decades and decades of professionally printed books, I put only one word space between sentences.
At first, my new practice looked weird. But, I found that my work now resembled that found in a book, instead of that typed on the typewriter. Once I began using typesetting standards instead of typewriter standards, my eyes grew accustomed to reading text that was properly set, with only one space between paragraphs. My eyes adjusted to a reading flow that was not interrupted by too much white space after a period.
So, while I can appreciate that those accustomed to reading text with two sentence ending spaces might resist change, I cannot agree that their habits are actually "best" for the reader.
To quote a very old Alka Seltzer commercial, "Try it, you'll like it!"
Virgil
I mean "can not" and the substitution of which I spoke is what is made by the autocorrect feature.
I always enjoy finding a new feature in LO, one that I never knew existed. That recently happened to me as was playing with paragraph styles.
One of the features I have always liked about LaTeX is the way in which the size of its headings fonts is tied to its base font with designations such as "Large" "Larger" and "Huge." If you increase the size of the base font, the size of the headings increases correspondingly.
I never thought this could be done with LO as font sizes are expressed in exact point sizes. Thus, if I increased the size of my default font from 11 to 12 points, I thought I had to increase my headings, say, from 16 to 18 points.
But...
I recently discovered that the font sizes of heading styles can expressed, not only in points, but as a percentage of the default font size.
Let's say the base font size of your text font is 11 points and you want your headings to be twice the size. Instead of setting the headings style to 22 points, you can actually type 200% in the point size box. It will then always be twice the size of your base font size no matter what size you set the base font. (Make sure you do this in the Styles formatting dialogs and not in the direct formatting dialogs.)
I often change between fonts, some of which look best at 11 points (Century, Palatino) and some at 12 points (Times, Goudy Old Style). Now, I can change the base font size knowing that my headings will change correspondingly.
Just thought I'd share this for others who may be interested in a feature that may go unnoticed.
Virgil
While there is no ISO or equivalent, there are a lot of
wannabe:
In the US: The "real" expert (in the US) on this subject
seems to be
the Chicago Manual of Style. It sets forth what Publishers
desire/want/will not accept unless it complies with
regarding submissions.
Brits have The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Authors and
Publishers among others, and the EU has its own Style Manual
Oh, and for students, there is the "Elements of Style".
There are Academic Styles, Styles for Medical writing ad
nauseum.
So, the devs could lose many hours sleep trying to
generate a program to cover all eventualities.
I think there is a difference between a style for submitting a manuscript to a publisher and a style for final publication. I understand many publishers want manuscripts submitted in double spaced type, which they would never use when actually publishing the book. Our discussion has been more about good final product than initial submissions.
Virgil
True, but with that we've moved quite far from the discussion about
what LO can and cannot do. As far as I can see, these
standards/conventions are about:
font size
line spacing
margins
paragraph indentation
inter-word and inter-sentance spacing.
I realise LO can't be all things to all people, but what I've
understood so far as that LO can do all but the last point. With
justified text that last point may not be relevant, and it may not be a
good convention for final product, but for some people it will still be
relevant, and they should ideally have the choice. Is this something
that can be added to LO? Should there be an enhancement request for
this? Are there other points that need to be addressed in addition to
those listed so far? Has someone tested a regex search/replace for this
as a workaround (I think someone tried something that didn't work, but
it wasn't a regex)?
Just my R0.02
Paul
Sounds interesting. But where do you set the BASE font size?
-- Tim
HI
I think the default font size is the font size of the "text-body" or "default" style used in the body text that is under the heading (hopefully)
Note that if you look through the various font sizes of the styles that are given as defaults then "Heading1" is already set as a percentage. It's only "Heading2", "Heading3" and so on that would need changing from fixed sizes.
Another neat trick is that all the styles cascade anyway. So if you modify the relevant style then all subsequent ones change too, to stay relevant to the one you changed. Sadly i don't fully understand which ones cascade from which. clicking this link starts downloading the Pdf directly
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/images/6/6e/GS4003-StylesAndTemplates.pdf
Regards from
Tom