Re: Space Before and After?

Subject: Re: Space Before and After?
From: Peter Gold <peter -at- knowhowpro -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 12:47:53 -0600



David and Dick make good points about working with a grid of some kind,
to maintain a somewhat consistent "look."

I just wanted to add two notes:

* If there is a requirement for the alignment between lines of text in
adjacent columns on the same page, and also alignment of text in
adjacent columns on facing pages (and even alignment between lines of
text on front and back of the same paper), then a grid is one feature
that helps implement this with program control, rather than manually.

* (Not intended to bash other tools) FrameMaker, as far as I know, is
the only popular publishing tool that does not add space after a
paragraph to space before the following paragraph. The larger of the
two spaces is honored, and the smaller is ignored. IMO what is better
about this approach than the additive method is simply that it's always
certain how much space follows or preceded (or both) a paragraph. This
is probably most useful for higher-level paragraphs like chapter and
section titles.

Regarding the issue of space above, I'm not sure how other tools handle
space above paragraphs when the paragraph appears at the top of a
column or page or in a table cell, but FrameMaker paragraphs ignore
space above in these positions. Also, FM paragraphs ignore space below
when the paragraph is the last one on a column or page, or is the last
paragraph in a table cell.

In most tools that can set paragraph space above and/or below, and can
observe a grid, and also have the ability to balance columns (make them
equal depth if they aren't completely full), and also have the ability
to adjust the spacing between paragraphs to "fill out" the depth of a
text column, it's likely to have these interrelated requirements settle
their arguments in ways that don't agree with the author's or
designer's preferences. As content is added or deleted or moved, the
ongoing calculations can cause changes to what seemed to be stable
layouts.

Regards,

Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices


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