OASIS Mailing List ArchivesView the OASIS mailing list archive below
or browse/search using MarkMail.

 


Help: OASIS Mailing Lists Help | MarkMail Help

office message

[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]


Subject: Re: [office] proposal; Amend fo:letter-spacing


Hi Thomas,

Thomas Zander wrote:
> On Thursday 5. June 2008 23:29:21 Jirka Kosek wrote:
>> Thomas Zander wrote:
>>> Unfortunately for DTP applications this is not really what is expected.
>>> The spacing between characters in DTP is not a static value, it is a
>>> percentage value.  Basically when you have an 'm' the spacing adjustment
>>> is wider than when you have an 'i'.
>> Well I haven't seen this behaviour in any typesetting system I know.
>> Letter spacing is spread evenly between letters. Otherwise, typesetting
>> will look even more ugly (if we assume that letter spacing usually look
>> enough ugly itself).
> 
> I'm not sure what to say, which typesetting systems did you check?  In my
> experience with FrameMaker and InDesign they both have percentage based
> letter spacing.  Did you check those apps?

Do you really mean to add or decrease the space between characters 
(that's what XSL-FO's letter-spacing does)? Or do you want to modify the 
width of the characters that is used in layout calculations.

That is, if I have an "a" in the text and the new attribute has the 
value 95%, should then a space of 95% of the width of the "a" character 
added as space between the "a" and the next letter? Or shall the 
character box of the "a" that is used in layout calculation set to be 
95% of the width of the "a" character, while the "a" character is 
displayed with its usual width (100%)?

I believe the later is the case.

If that is the case, then I think it would be better to define a 
different attribute than fo:letter-spacing, because that attribute 
actually defines the space between characters. The new attribute could 
be similar to the existing text:text-scale attribute, that actually 
adjusts the width of characters. The only difference to your suggestion 
seems to be that it scales the font width rather then only the layout 
box of the character.

If the attribute shall define the space between characters, then I think 
we should anyway define a new attribute because of the compatibility to 
XSL-FO that Jirka has mentioned already.

Best regards

Michael

-- 
Michael Brauer, Technical Architect Software Engineering
StarOffice/OpenOffice.org
Sun Microsystems GmbH             Nagelsweg 55
D-20097 Hamburg, Germany          michael.brauer@sun.com
http://sun.com/staroffice         +49 40 23646 500
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS

Sitz der Gesellschaft: Sun Microsystems GmbH, Sonnenallee 1,
	   D-85551 Kirchheim-Heimstetten
Amtsgericht Muenchen: HRB 161028
Geschaeftsfuehrer: Thomas Schroeder, Wolfgang Engels, Dr. Roland Boemer
Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrates: Martin Haering


[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]