It would appear that on Apr 3, Paul A. Rubin did say:
> Seems to be a "quirk" of LaTeX specific to typewriter font. Since typewriter
> font is intended to have fixed spacing, LaTeX can't justify things evenly.
> There's a fix at
> http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Comp/comp.text.tex/2005-09/msg00004.html
> that works on your document if you don't mind variable spacing between words.
> Another possibility is to make that section of text left justified (ragged
> right) rather than fully justified. Under other circumstance a third option
> would be to use the hyphenat package to allow hyphenation of typewriter text.
> Unfortunately, that would require a change to your prose style -- you're not
> using long enough words in that section. :-) (I tested this -- hyphenation
> did not cure the problem.)
Thank you for the link, and the suggestion on left justification. I'll
have to experiment...
However what I don't understand why, whether LaTeX can properly
justify typewriter font or not, surely such a powerful typesetting
system could detect that the line was going to exceed the intended
margin, and at least adjust "word wrap" to move the offending word
down to the next line. (of course then the next line would have to be
readjusted, then the next ad infinum...) It would still fail true
justification, but at least the text would remain inside the margins.
And if there is a reason I don't understand, why, LaTeX can't do this,
Then perhaps LyX itself {could/should?} in the spirit of letting it's
users focus on content, detect the known problem and make the
evidently complex coding adjustments necessary to alter the right
margin {I gather with LaTeX this is controlled by line length settings,
which I don't think a LyX user should need to know how to override in
such a way that the override only affects the typewriter font
paragraph(s)}
However both the preceding paragraphs project my idealistic concept of
what LyX/LaTeX should do to keep it's user base concentrating on
content, rather than any belief that either idea will ever come into
play. So I'm curious, would there maybe be something I could put in an
ert box that saves the current line length settings some place that I
could restore them from after I then used some more LyX code to simply
reduce the line length of the affected portion(s) of a document?
One other thought, even if LyX can't be expected to 'automatically'
compensate for this LaTeX "quirk" is it feasible that a line length
element could someday be added to LyX's paragraph settings???
It would appear that on Apr 3, Steve Litt did say:
>
> On Saturday 03 April 2010 02:48:12 Joe(theWordy)Philbrook wrote:
>
> > I get similar, but slightly better results from setting the environment to
> > quotation. Like verse, the righthand margin appears the same for both the
> > leftside and rightside pages. But with quotation it's slightly better
> > because the closest it gets to the righthand edge of the "paper" is
> > approximately doubled to a half inch or so... But it's still not right.
> > And besides, Like I said, I don't want it formatted as verse. And I'm not
> > quoting anyone...
>
> I'd like to frame the preceding paragraph and send it to everyone I know. In
> a
> world where most people jam in codes everywhere, you actually try to make
> your
> styles represent the intent of the writing.
Well it's not that I'm against inserting codes whenever I need a down
and dirty fix for something. But rather it's a combination of not
having taken a course in typesetting with LaTeX, having difficulty
remembering the things I have learned (I blame that on CRS), and last
but certainly not least, the fact that I'm sold on the idea of letting
my document processor (LyX) free me from micro-managing the details
of my document(s) appearance so that I can concentrate on the content.
That last point was why I chose to try to learn to use LyX about 6
years ago, even though I already realized that for me the learning curve
would be painfully slow. But if you think it would help encourage
style based solutions, please feel free to copy, modify, and publish
any or all of my post with the sole exception of the copyrighted text
embedded in the example attachment.
- - - - - - - - -< snip/glue/snip >- - - - - - - - - -
> What you want is the MEANING of "Joe's special paragraph" but a LOOK similar
> to the standard quotation environment. So do something like this in a layout
> file:
>
> =================================================
> Preamble
> \newenvironment{joesspecialparagraphL}
> {
> \begin{quotation}
> % Add any tweaks you want here
> }{
> % Add any ending tweaks you want here
> \end{quotation}
> }
> EndPreamble
>
>
> Style JoesSpecialParagraph
> CopyStyle Quotation
> LatexType Environment
> LatexName joesspecialparagraphL
> End
> =================================================
>
> The part where I discuss tweaks is where you modify the look of the quotation
> environment to match your desired look. So you'd put margin changes, font
> changes, and any decorations (boxes, shaded boxes or whatever) in the tweak
> areas.
((Thanks for the troubleshooters link BTW)) The above "JoesSpecialParagraph"
style idea is an interesting concept. Lets see if I'm understanding it
properly... ;)
1) By putting something like the above in my document's layout file, I'd
actually be adding an "environment" to my document that would then
actually appear as a choice in the pull-down selection list I get with
"<Alt>+p {space}" ????
2) the reason for using "CopyStyle Quotation" is that in
this particular case, the quotation style should require the fewest
"tweaks" to get the results I'm looking for. But that I could just
as easily start with any existing environment so that if I wanted
two slightly different "JoesSpecialParagraph" styles I'd be able to
(after first doing the above) then repeat the process using
=> Style JoesOtherParagraph
=> CopyStyle JoesSpecialParagraph
And only need to "tweak" the difference between the two new styles
rather than all the differences between 'quotation' and the 2nd new
style???
In which case, could you tell me how I might effectively increase the
right hand margin, as one of these tweaks? It seems to me that if I
did that as part of an environment "style", then I could restore
the default right margin simply by changing the style back to
standard or whatever...
> I highly recommend you separate the LaTeX code (the stuff between the
> Preamble
> and EndPreamble from the LyX code (the stuff between "Style" and "End"). LyX
> allows you to stick a Preamble/EndPreamble pair right in the LyX style, and a
> lot of people recommend that, but under certain arcane conditions reusable
> code can break in a non-obvious way when you do that. I always put my LaTeX
> in
> the upper part of my layout file and the LyX code in the lower part so I
> don't
> have these problems.
I gather the other method is regarded as easier or more convenient,
but you feel your method is more reliable... Out of curiosity does
their method offer any functional advantage aside from simplifying the
process of "coding" a "style" as one cohesive segment rather than two
separate but inter-dependent chunks of code?
If theirs doesn't then I think I'd just as soon learn yours. Speaking
of which, Am I right in guessing that the two lines above, that start
with an "%" could be actually included (or not) in the actual code
without affecting the results because they would be ignored as
"comments" by LyX and/or latex??? the same way a bash script ignores
lines starting with "#" ?
--
| ~^~ ~^~
| <?> <?> Joe (theWordy) Philbrook
| ^ J(tWdy)P
| \___/ <<jtw...@ttlc.net>>
I'm NOT clueless... But I just don't know.
