Re: too small inter-word spacing

[Jeff Kingston]

Joerg van den Hoff <address@hidden> wrote:
> and as an accidental observation: if one increases the space width to
> something nonsensical such as 1250, the postscript output does no longer
> maintain the correct A4 pagewidth of 595 points (I think), but, for this
> value of 1250, the pagewidth is increased substantially, namely to 765.
> where the text still occupies the original space, but the right page margin
> seems increased. probably not important, but
> is this possibly indication of a bug somewhere?

I don't know.  It does sound strange.  If you think it's worth
following up, post a small example and I'll look into it.

> are spaces always compressed, never expanded?

No.

> "lout vs. ...  vs. TeX" I don't encounter similar corner cases
> of really bad tight spacing.

On the other hand, there are cases where TeX leaves a word
sticking out of the column into the right margin.

> in view of the fact that lout
> apparently completely(?) adopts the TeX algorithm I find this
> all the more surprising.

Lout does not follow the TeX algorithm exactly.  It uses the same
general method.

> compression down to 1/4 of usual width seems near to what's
> happening in my example: looking at the usual average space width in
> formatted output and mentally taking 1/4 of that is quite near the
> inter-letter spacing and that seems not to make much sense to me:
> inter-word spacing should always be clearly discernable larger than
> inter-letter space. otherwise the reader at times really has
> difficulties to decide where the word boundaries are.

I had no difficulty reading that very tight line.

> I realize that these settings always have to find a compromise so that
> it's looks alright (or, rather, good, but not optimal) everywhere.
> but I really would argue from what I've seen up to now (admittedly a
> sample of limited size) to change the MAX_SHRINK define (and maybe the
> others: you definitely know better than me) in the official lout
> version. do you think this is worth contemplating?

The current settings have been in use for a long time, and most
people are happy with them, if I can judge from the lack of other
postings like yours on the list (although I seem to remember that
there was one, some time ago).  Different document formatters have
a different "look", and when people move from one to another they
are struck by these differences, and at first they try to find ways
to make the new formatter behave in the way they are familiar with;
but over time they get used to the new way.  I expect this sounds
condescending, but it's true and I have observed it many times.

> another idea: do you think it's worth to allow the user in the
> standard setup files to choose between, say, "tight spacing"
> (which might be the current behaviour) and "loose spacing"
> which would select an accordingly modified set of parameters
> (converting, e.g., the current defines to two-valued arrays,
> where the user selection leads internally to selection of first
> or second component). "loose spacing" would/could then make lout
> behave more similiar to the other formatters (troff, TeX) in this
> respect, which at least would do no harm.

I don't want to do this.  I'm all in favour of options that give
the user choices over content, but for the typography I think that
the user should leave it to Lout to do the best it can.  If the
current settings are wrong the right course would be to change them.

Michael Piotrowski <address@hidden> wrote:
> @InitialSpace is documented, but I'm not sure whether
> the width adjustment option is described.

I looked the other day and couldn't find it in the User's Guide.
I doubt if it belongs there anyway.  It's documented in the
Expert's Guide under the @Space symbol.

Jeff