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Re: @smallbook and friends


From: Karl Berry
Subject: Re: @smallbook and friends
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 11:29:23 -0400

            Haven't you made @smallfoo always use small fonts?  

Yes.

    @smallbook redefines @foo to use the small fonts, and @smallfoo to
    use smaller fonts.  

I considered that at one point, but it makes the situation even more
confusing, in my opinion.

    That way, examples should fit on the page no matter what.

If by "no matter what" you mean "80 characters or less", maybe.

If we did that, it's true that @smallexample within @smallbook would fit
80 characters.  The problem is that the font has to be so small (8pt).
It would be wrong (IMHO) to make *every* @smallexample (or worse, every
@example) use such small fonts just because some examples have long
lines.  It is better to rewrite the examples.

Or heck, just let them hang over into the margin.  It's going to look
bad no matter what you do, so ...

If you really want to use such small fonts for your print run in order
to fit 80 chars, then use @smallexample exclusively and
\global\let\smallexamplefonts=\smallerfonts 
and be done with it.  IMHO.

The fundamental problem is that it's a physical fact that 80 typewriter
characters are too wide to fit nicely on reasonable size paper in a
reasonable font size.  You can kludge it in any way what you want, but
it's still going to look bad.


FYI, I put a long comment into texinfo.tex with the results of my
experiments about how many characters fit in what page size with what
size fonts:

% About \smallexamplefonts.  If we use \smallfonts (9pt), @smallexample
% can fit this many characters:
%   8.5x11=86   smallbook=72  a4=90  a5=69
% If we use \smallerfonts (8pt), then we can fit this many characters:
%   8.5x11=90+  smallbook=80  a4=90+  a5=77
% For me, subjectively, the few extra characters that fit aren't worth
% the additional smallness of 8pt.  So I'm making the default 9pt.
%
% By the way, for comparison, here's what fits with @example (10pt):
%   8.5x11=71  smallbook=60  a4=75  a5=58
%
% I wish we used A4 paper on this side of the Atlantic.
%
% --karl, 24jan03.




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