Damian.Cugley@prg.ox.ac.uk (Damian Cugley) (03/15/91)
From: graeme@otago.ac.nz Message-Id: <1991Mar14.170116.152@otago.ac.nz> > Indenting paragraphs versus space between paragraphs > A lot of people doing their own typesetting fall into the > trap of putting space between paragraphs rather than > indenting paragraphs. > This seems to have come about through the influence of > typewriting, where it is easier (i.e., quicker) to type > the <return> key twice rather than a <return> and a > <tab> key. The "rules" for typewritten text are *different* because they use fixed-width fonts and a limited character set -- just like plain-ASCII articles. The blank line between paragraphs arguably helps open up the page. As you can see, I use blank lines as separators (if only to be consistent with all the computer program that rely on this heuristic). > TeX and LaTeX, by default, indent paragraphs rather > than insert space between paragraphs, but many users > go to a lot of trouble to reverse this. Actually \parskip for TeX is 0pt plus 1pt -- which stretches horribly on bad pages. (It ought either to be 0pt exactly or some positive amount.) If you want to argue style on the basis of legibility, you might like to cite some research one way or the other. My understanding is that there is almost no evidence one way or the other -- at least not enough to over-rule the aesthetic sense of the typographer. (The same applies to ragged-right vs. justified.) Beginners should think twice about altering style parameters though. > Modern typography is all about `form following function', > i.e., each part of the design has to justify its existence > in terms of enhancing readability. I beg to differ. There is still a role for people with an eye for beautiful typesetting as well as functional typesetting. Presumably the `form over function' people are still puzzled as to why there is more than one of each sort of font in existance -- if you already have Times, why bother making Bookman? > Indenting paragraphs is an economical way of signalling the > start of a new paragraph (and hence new idea). It then > leaves vertical space to be employed to display text such > as extracts, lists, etc. > Under NO circumstances should paragraphs be both spaced > and indented. I use no paragraph skip when setting "plain text". A friend of mine setting his thesis -- with many displayed formulae -- used a 1/2ex paragraph skip. He argued that the space on either side of all the displays and lists meant that the the division into paragraphs was obscured. Even though this is Against the Lore, I think it worked OK. I think that indentation should not be dropped if there are displays etc. because then it does become difficult to spot new paragraphs. This implies that sometimes it might seem appropriate to have both \parindent and \parskip nonzero. > \bibitem{Tschichold} > Tschichold, J. > \newblock {\em Assymetric Typography}. > \newblock Faber \& Faber Ltd in co-operation with Cooper \& Beatty, Ltd > (Toronto), London, 1967. > \newblock Translated by Ruari McLean. BTW, in a plain text article -- such as on USENET -- you might like to use plain-text formatting conventions rather than obscure LaTeXisms. ---- Damian Cugley -------------------------------- pdc@prg.ox.ac.uk --- Computing Laboratory, 11 Keble Rd, Oxford OX1 3QD Great Britain ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I don't want to see INFO-TeX sub/unsub messages, so please post them to LISTSERV@SHSU.BITNET (or to BED_GDG@SHSU.BITNET) and *not* to INFO-TeX. Please include the word "LaTeX" in the Subject: line of LaTeX articles.
jg@prg.ox.ac.uk (Jeremy Gibbons) (03/15/91)
> Presumably the `form over function' [sic] people are still puzzled as to why > there is more than one of each sort of font in existance -- if you > already have Times, why bother making Bookman? The choice of font is as much one of function as of form. Caslon wouldn't work for a chatty fanzine, any more than a bouncy sans serif would for the King James---they put across entirely different messages. *-----------------------------------------------------------------------* | Jeremy Gibbons (jg@uk.ac.oxford.prg) Funky Monkey Multimedia Corp | *-----------------------------------------------------------------------*