From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Thu Apr 01 2004 - 05:55:49 EST
From: "Séamas Ó Brógáin" <leabhair@iol.ie>
> Peter Kirk wrote:
>
> > But, as Ken has just clarified, with NBSP Louis' neck may be stretched
> > rather uncomfortably, if not cut completely. Here is what I don't want
> > to see (fixed width font required):
> >
> > Louis XVI was
> > guillotined in
> > 1793.
> >
> > Here is what I do want:
> >
> > Louis XVI was
> > guillotined in
> > 1793.
>
> Well, I _am_ a typographer; and in my opinion Peter's first example
> (allowing for the exaggerated spaces) is perfectly correct, and his
> second example is not. The idea of using spaces of different width to
> convey different meanings within a sentence is unprecedented and,
> frankly, absurd.
Don't exagerate here: an author may wish to emphasize a semantic with a visual
grouping of some related words, but this is left as a author decision i.e. part
of the style he wishes to apply.
But you're wrong here, as you are judging from your knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon
typographic tradition. There does exist some tradition of keeping the Roman
number suffix attached to King names. Whever it is good or not this tradition
exists in French typography...
Buthere also this is a question of style, rather than a typographic rule. Styles
change over time. A medieval text will not be typographed like a Renaissance one
or a "modern" one.
The case of small columns exists recently for newspapers (notably in free ads
and diaries) that need to pack a lot of information on the same page but still
have readable columns of text. In that case, spaces are better rendered by using
equal treatment for all spaces and by adding extra inter-letter spacing
(positive kerning) so that these columns will keep a good left and right
justification needed to read correctly the packed columns. This usage will
almost never apply traditional typographic styles (kept mostly in books that
rarely use more than two columns on the same page), but a style that works best
for such newspaper and diaries publications (with short lines of text rendered
at about 57 signs per line), where a maximum of space must be kept for the
insertion of paid advertizing, with flexible widths spanning 1, 2 or 3 columns
(they are called "modules" in papers).
Even in that case, the usage of non-breaking spaces is really not encouraged
(unlike the use of thin spaces for composite punctuation signs which has a much
stronger tradition, as they really help the readability of the rendered packed
columns, by limiting their incorrect reading as letters, notably for exclamation
point, colons, semi-colons and french guillemots). The key factor is to improve
readability of small texts in narrow columns (if those texts were too difficult
to read, the added value and vbenefit for readers of these ads would be lost and
papers would not reach their intended audience, meaning that they could not sell
these ads...
Same problem for yellow pages and white pages, or for dictionnaries in compact
format which must be kept usable and easily searchable by readers. Typographic
rules and stylesheets are not there to be beautiful but to be useful for readers
and to allow flexibility in the page layout and p^lacement for other payed
advertizing. So when you look at such narrow ads, you'll commonly find texts
like:
Vds 4 chaises style Louis
XV, restaurées, empaillage
récent. Tel:
01 02 03 04 05 ap. 20h.
The only place where unbreakable spaces are used is for phone numbers and prices
and they are generally rendered with thin spaces for grouping digits. But
there's no restriction to avoid a line break between Louis and XV.
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