alex@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Alex Pournelle) (01/05/90)
wiseman@tellab5.TELLABS.COM (Jeff Wiseman) writes: >In article <1990Jan4.100234.28177@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us> alex@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Alex Pournelle) writes: >>jr@amanue.UUCP (Jim Rosenberg) writes: >> >>>I'm using ATM with WriteNow and an ImageWriter II. You can generally count me >>>as a very satisfied ATM user. I find it to be nothing short of amazing. But >>>I find the spacing when there's a transition from italics to plain text to be >>>just huge. You see it on the screen too. And yes, I do turn on "Use Printer >>>Spacing" in WriteNow's Page Setup. >> >>I've forever had this problem in PageFaker 2.0x and 3.0x myself--ATM or >>no. I always thought it PM's fault. No? >> >This is curious. When you changed your font from an italic to plain style, was >it before or after the space? In other words, is there such thing as an italic >space? >Just wondering. I remember some kind of a problem with MacWriteII (the initial >release, I think) where "bold spaces" needed to be changed to "plain spaces" in >order for some of the Bold text spacing to look correct. Could this be a >similar kind of problem? Hmmmmm. I'll check. I admit I hadn't thought of that--I guess "a space is a space" to a Poor Little User like me. Anyone have a beta of PageMaker 4.0 they'd like to try this out on? Try printing an italicized word followed by a regular space, and one followed by a "plain" space. See if the spacing is less messed up one way or another. If it DOES make a difference, should it? I don't think so, but doubtless many will disagree. WANTED: "Show marks" option for PageMaker. Or am I dreaming that they would add such a simple thing? Have they improved the *&%^(*^*^&*^ hypenation algorithm in PM4.0? This has to be one very large embarassment for Aldus--the last time an alg- orithm this bad was in use was the days of the RCA 301, which w- ould hyphenate "Go- d". Really. (Well, the LA Times has almost as bad an algorithm; is this a hangover of the bad old III system, or has the Coyote bottled the same wretched methods?) Alex
jr@amanue.UUCP (Jim Rosenberg) (01/05/90)
wiseman@tellab5.TELLABS.COM (Jeff Wiseman) writes: >This is curious. When you changed your font from an italic to plain style, was >it before or after the space? In other words, is there such thing as an italic >space? Sure there's such a thing, and sure its width *could be* different from a plain space, I guess; this was the first thing I checked. No go. Making sure I had a plain space still left a huge gap. In fact I really first noticed it after I had a big space between an italic word and a plain text period at the end of a sentence; there was *no space* between the word and the period. Sigh. -- Jim Rosenberg CIS: 71515,124 decvax!idis! \ WELL: jer allegra! ---- pitt!amanue!jr BIX: jrosenberg uunet!cmcl2!cadre! /
gjb@cs.brown.edu (Greg Brail) (01/06/90)
>In article <1990Jan4.100234.28177@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us> alex@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Alex Pournelle) writes: >>I've forever had this problem in PageFaker 2.0x and 3.0x myself--ATM or >>no. I always thought it PM's fault. No? According to Donald Knuth in the TeXbook, (page 14) italic words that are before plain or boldface words should have a slightly bigger space after them than they would if they were in plain text. TeX has something called an "italic correction" which does this. Is it possible that ATM or PageMaker is smart enough to put in this extra space? Or is the space too big for even that? (I haven't seen this myself, so I don't know.) It could be that the space looks big because it's bigger than the space that would be there on the screen without ATM, but that the extra space is correct. I've also noticed that, with fully justified text, PageMaker puts extra space after an em-dash that is followed by a space. Backspacing and retyping the dash and the space returns it to normal. I hope this will be fixed in PM 4.0 as well. (I also hope it doesn't cost too much more money, because I feel like I'm asking for "just another $25 for a PageMaker upgrade" every few months.) -greg +----------------------------------------------------+ Greg Brail Internet: gjb@cs.brown.edu BITNET: gjb@browncs.bitnet UUCP: ..uunet!brunix!gjb Home: (401)863-6284
mgodwin@rpp386.cactus.org (Mike Godwin) (01/07/90)
In article <GJB.90Jan6003355@heloise.cs.brown.edu> gjb@cs.brown.edu (Greg Brail) writes: > >I've also noticed that, with fully justified text, PageMaker puts >extra space after an em-dash that is followed by a space. I've had similar problems with Pagemaker's changing double hyphens to an em-dashes. The problem went away when I deactivated the "Convert Quotes" option that appears in the "Place" dialog box. Have you tried playing with the "Convert Quotes" and "Retain Format" options? (I don't have the manual next to me at this terminal, so I can't give you the details of what those two options do.) --Mike -- Mike Godwin UT Law School | "... and first I put my arms around him yes mgodwin@rpp386.cactus.org | and drew him down to me so he could feel my (512) 346-4190 | breasts all perfume yes and his heart was cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!mgodwin | going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."
kfr@dip.eecs.umich.edu (K. Fritz Ruehr) (01/09/90)
I don't know if this helps, but I get exactly the same symptoms without ever
having used ATM at all. Specifically, I get these "huge gaps" after italics
using WriteNow 2.0 BUT ONLY WITH NFNT's; that is to say, I don't get the same
problem with the regular, standard issue FOND fonts in my system, only with
the ones that I've changed to NFNT's using the utility from the Sumex archive
(and using the Adobe NFNT families also available there). As far as I recall,
however, the problem is only on screen--my LaserWriter prints are fine.
-- Fritz Ruehr
kfr@dip.eecs.umich.eduwiseman@tellab5.TELLABS.COM (Jeff Wiseman) (01/10/90)
In article <1190@zipeecs.umich.edu> kfr@dip.eecs.umich.edu.UUCP (K. Fritz Ruehr) writes: >I don't know if this helps, but I get exactly the same symptoms without ever >having used ATM at all. Specifically, I get these "huge gaps" after italics >using WriteNow 2.0 BUT ONLY WITH NFNT's; that is to say, I don't get the same >problem with the regular, standard issue FOND fonts in my system, only with >the ones that I've changed to NFNT's using the utility from the Sumex archive >(and using the Adobe NFNT families also available there). As far as I recall, >however, the problem is only on screen--my LaserWriter prints are fine. I think that this is the kind of effect that you get when you turn on "fractional fonts". The idea is to get the contents of the line on the screen to match what it should be based on the fonts themselves. Since the pixel placement sizing on the screen is fairly coarse relative to the definitions in the fonts, the fractional font size capability mucks around with the screen placement to get everything on a line that needs to be there, even at the cost of cramming and spacing unnaturally. The bottom line is fractional fonts on - lousy screen placement good laserwriter plcement -- fractional fonts off - even screen placement good imagewriter placement and spacey lines on a laserwriter. Anyway this is just my guess from what I have observed :-) -- Jeff Wiseman: ....uunet!tellab5!wiseman OR wiseman@TELLABS.COM