Re: too small inter-word spacing

[Joerg van den Hoff]

On Sep 05 2008 (Fri,  7:51), Jeff Kingston wrote:
> 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.

I tried it with arbitrary text snippets. here it happens every time if
the output is viewed with `gv'.
just set @InitialFont to Palatino Base 12p and set the spacewidth in
Pa-Rm to `1250' instead of `250'. so a minimal example is:

@SysInclude {doc}
@Document
   @InitialFont     {Palatino Base 12p}
//
@Text @Begin
@LP
....
@End @Text

when converting the postscript to pdf everything seems correct again.
so I'd say either lout or gv/gs has a bug? can you confirm the
phenomenon when viewing the output with `gv'?

> 
> > 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.

I know. although until very recently I've never used TeX myself but
troff/groff (and groff does'nt do that :-)).

> 
> > 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

nevertheless, absense of complaints is only a necessary but
not a sufficient condition for absense of an issue. if everybody would
say: sure the spacing is right, I'd probably have to shut up.

> 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

actually, that's by no means my aim and I'm not attempting to
achieve any such thing (apart
from the recent check what I've to do to the space width in the metrics
file to get similar output)

> condescending, but it's true and I have observed it many times.

as long as you note how it sounds, it's obviously not meant that way...
anyway a few remarks to that: 1.) I'm probably less biased to my "pet"
typesetter (that would be groff) 
than you are to yours simply since you've written it
yourself. 2.) I'm evaluating lout rather seriously as an alternative for
groff/TeX for my purposes. I'm not trying to prove it's bad (it sure
is'nt).
3.) I don't object to a different "look". I look at TeX output and
think it's quite nice but their's too much fuss about nicities I don't really
care for (hanging punctuation, which you seem not a fan off, too, for
example). and TeX's default font, CMR, sure is OK (although experts seem to 
think of it
rather as "quite good for an amateur" than rating it as a really good
font). anyway the output of TeX, simply because of the ubiquitous CMR
font, looks rather different from what I'm used to with troff (sticking
with Times, Helvetica and Palatino). this does not make me complain
about it looking bad. and I'd argue that different fonts make
much more of an obvious difference than inter-word spacing _should_ be
possible to make under _any_ circumstances.

since my last mail I've written still another text (this time in German)
again using Palatino 12p. and again 95%, say, of the spacing is OK (but
rather tight to everything else I've seen), but a small fraction looks
bad and a very few are simply not tolerable. in one case, a trailing `f'
of one word is only 1 point (!) apart from the leading `b' of the next
word (measured with the cursor in `gv' at the top of the glyphs). 
that simply looks as if I'd forgotten to type the space between the words.
such things can't be right.

while you noticed the danger of sounding condescending, I realize that
I sound like a grinch (looked that up in a dictionary, hope that's the
word). that's not intended. I just hope that you might look critically
at some more examples and check whether the settings should be altered.
I'm so insisting, because I really start to like lout otherwise ...

> 
> > 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

I actually feel the same. the above was an attempt to avoid, for the
time being, the decision what's "right", the current (very) tight spacing 
or a more loose spacing. and a "binary" decision between two well defined
behaviours would not mess everything up. but sure it's better to leave
this completely to the program if possible.

> current settings are wrong the right course would be to change them.

I really hope you are willing (and find the time) to re-assess the
settings controling the spacing. my (admittedly limited) tries with lout
seem to indicate, e.g. that lout is rather hyphenation-phobic (troff seems
not to have any 'hyphenation penalty' at all...) and really
willing to annihilate inter-word-spacing just to avoid hyphenation. or
so it seems. or/and maybe, MAX_SHRINK is substantially too large?
but I'm not in a position to judge this competently, I only see
the effect that the spaces can sometimes be compressed way too much.


I think I should leave it at that before this really starts to waist
your time. 

best regards,

joerg

> 
> 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