xml-dev - Re: The problem with typography (with or without flow objects)

[Sebastian Rahtz <sebastian.rahtz@computing-services.oxford.ac.uk>]

Marcus Carr writes:

 > So if you wanted to use a different FO application to render that
 > book, you would likely have to go back to the source document and
 > redo your page breaks, right?

Yes, definitely. But how big a job is that, compared to translating the
style rules from (say) LaTeX to Framemaker. If I have to switch to a
new FO formatter, I have a not inconsiderable task on my hands,
if I want to rerun old jobs. But the effort I put into instantiating
design rules as FOs remains, and I claim that I am ahead of the game.

 > If the two applications used different hyphenation dictionaries, there is a
 > distinct possibility that the page breaks would change in a 300 page book.

every time ..... never mind, just how they interpret font
metrics. applications use their own ideas about default inter-word
spacing, because its not part of a font metric

 > are benefits in everyone using the same terminology, but I believe
 > that FOs are intended to fulfill a much bigger role than that. My
 > understanding is that they're supposed to "free us from the
 > shackles of formatting applications", but
 > I've yet to be convinced that they can deliver this.

I am with you there. The unshackling notion sounds fanciful

Sebastian Rahtz


***************************************************************************
This is xml-dev, the mailing list for XML developers.
To unsubscribe, mailto:majordomo@xml.org&BODY=unsubscribe%20xml-dev
List archives are available at http://xml.org/archives/xml-dev/
***************************************************************************