On 08-Jan-2012 Deri James wrote: > On Saturday 07 Jan 2012 22:59:46 Ted Harding wrote: >> Just a few somewhat random thoughts. I've been through this >> sort of thing too often for it to be easy or quick to summarise! > > I remember reading (on this list) a PHD thesis by Han The Thanh > (of pdfTEX fame) on micro typography, although the original is > now a dead link I think I've found it here:- > > http://www.pragma-ade.com/pdftex/thesis.pdf > > Many thought provoking ideas. > > Cheers > Deri
Thanks for updating the link, Deri. Yes, I remember reading this too, at the time, and also getting a lot of ideas. For example, I define characters like .char \[.>] \Z'.' .char \[,>] \Z',' .char \[;>] \Z';' .char \[:>] \Z':' .char \[rq>] \Z'\[rq]' .char \[qr>] \Z'\[qr]' .char \[!>] \Z'!' .char \[lq<] \Z'\h'-\w'\[lq]'u'\[lq]' .char \[ql<] \Z'\h'-\w'\[lq]'u'\[ql]' .char \[T<] \h'-0.300n'T for use at the ends and beginnings of lines. Note the "\[T<]", which, at the beginning of the line, gives a more pleasing alignment of "T" with the character[s] above and/or below, since the "visual impact" of "T" comes more from its vertical central bar than from its horizontal top bar. The "-0.300n'" may depend on which font you are using -- and nothing stops you from using \h'-\n[bsp]u', where \n[bsp] can be defined as \n[bspTR] or \n[bspBMB] or ... for fonts TimesRoman, BookmanBold, ... . For hyphenation it is more tricky, when inevitable. What I do there (when in a context where I do this "microtypography"), is to precede the first word in the line which to be output by: .ll +\w'\[hy]'u' (this can occur anywhere in the source for the preceding line). Then the "-" overhangs the right-hand end of the line by the right amount. Then reset it with .ll (which can occur anywhere in the source for the line with the hyphen). And so on -- one can invent any amount of such things, and the thesis in question gives a lot of ideas). Ted. ---------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.hard...@wlandres.net> Date: 08-Jan-2012 Time: 01:55:30 This message was sent by XFMail ----------------------------------
