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| Author |
Message |
remmers
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The Proper Layout of Text
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Aug 13 01:38 UTC 1995 |
THE PROPER LAYOUT OF TEXT
It is of the utmost importance that we strive at all times to
achieve the finest possible typographical presentation of our
written work. There are several considerations relevant to
this end.
First, let us turn our attention to the margins. You will
notice that I have provided generous margins both on the left
and the right. The margins frame the text and make it easier to
read. The left margin in particular helps us "catch" the
beginning of the next line after we have finished scanning the
previous one. Although of lesser utilitarian importance, a
generous top margin is esthetically pleasing.
Whatever the width of the margins, the text between should
contain ideally about ten or twelve words per line. Lines
significantly longer than this are harder to read as they are
difficult to grasp as units. In electronic media especially
a common mistake is to make the lines of text too long for
easy reading.
Be sure that the foreground and background colors are
conducive to reading without eyestrain. Black text on a light-
colored background is best. The ideal background color is
white. If this is too bright for you, a pale pastel green or
yellow may work better. If your display permits you to set
a background color, experiment to find what suits you best.
Surely one of the worst abominations visited upon us by the
electronic age is the widespread use of displays that show us
light text on a dark background. Such a presentation is an
insult to the words being displayed.
Finally, a word on the layout of paragraphs and other major
subdivisions. Do not use blank lines as paragraph breaks.
Instead, indicate new paragraphs by a few spaces of indentation;
three spaces is sufficient, five probably too many. Reserve blank
lines for separating larger sections of text. In this connection,
do not indent the first paragraph of a section, but rather begin
it flush with the left margin, as we have this section on
text layout. If a section has a title, display it in an
emphasized style, preferably boldface. In the case of simple
ascii display, of course, the best one can do is to use all
upper case for section titles.
If you follow the simple guidelines given above, your online
text will be readable and pleasing to the eye.
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| 19 responses total. |
remmers
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response 1 of 19:
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Aug 25 12:54 UTC 1995 |
I interpret the lack of response to #0 as silent agreement
with the principles espoused therein, and trust that others
will be putting them into practice in their own responses.
Another point about formatting--it is wasteful and
esthetically unpleasing to type two spaces between
sentences. You will notice that in normal printed matter
there is no more space separating sentences than there is
between words of the same sentence. In typing, there is no
reason to separate sentences by extra space either. I note
with disappointment that out of habit I double-spaced
between sentences a couple of times in the text of #0, and
shall strive to purge myself of this tendency.
Alas, there are electronic writing tools that do not
support principles of good text layout. For example the
vi editor does not recognize a single space as a sentence
separator. Nor does vi recognize indentation as beginning
a new paragraph, but instead expects paragraphs to be
separated by blank lines.
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remmers
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response 2 of 19:
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Oct 2 02:13 UTC 1995 |
There is no greater failing on the face of this earth
than the failure to format correctly. Many a brilliant
idea has languished in the dust not for lack of merit
but because it was poorly presented.
The day of our liberation from the straitjacket of
fixed-pitch typography is at hand. Soon, the most
casual of off-the-cuff responses entered in these
conferences will appear in typefaces as elegant as
Goudy's finest designs. We must insure that the wine
is worthy of the vessel. Though we may be casual, we
should never be careless. May our brief utterances
shine with the brilliance of the stars in the firma-
ment!
I share these thoughts in the hope that they will
help prepare all of us for the coming typographic
renaissance.
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robh
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response 3 of 19:
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Oct 2 10:56 UTC 1995 |
enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma
SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS
d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d
enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma
SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS
d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d
enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma
SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS
d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d
enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma
SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS
d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d
enigma SUCKS d00d enigma SUCKS d00d
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chelsea
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response 4 of 19:
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Oct 2 13:23 UTC 1995 |
Ya know, Rob, when I stand back a ways your response looks like
baby Jesus, in the manger, with a pacifier in his mouth. Nicely done.
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chelsea
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response 5 of 19:
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Oct 2 13:23 UTC 1995 |
I also believe in filling up a line. Waste not - want not.
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janc
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response 6 of 19:
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Oct 2 16:31 UTC 1995 |
Funny, when *I* stand back a ways to look at Rob's response, I fall out my
window.
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robh
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response 7 of 19:
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Oct 3 12:18 UTC 1995 |
I dunno, as a non-Christian I should be upset about your reaction,
then again I love the idea of shoving a pacifier in Jesus' mouth.
>8)
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robh
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response 8 of 19:
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Oct 3 12:20 UTC 1995 |
(Of course, I'd rather shove a pacifier in Pat Buchanan's mouth.)
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remmers
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response 9 of 19:
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Oct 6 15:04 UTC 1995 |
I do not care what people say here, as long as they format
it properly. Remember, no more than ten to twelve words per
line, consistent left and right margins, and a single space
between sentences. Provide a one-line top and bottom margin
for your response.
In addition, use indentation--not blank lines--to sepa-
rate paragraphs. Reserve interior blank lines for breaks
between major sections of your responses.
If you give as much care to formatting your responses
as a publisher would give to producing a book, the rest
will follow, and the reputation of the conferencing medium
will be enhanced in the public mind.
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rcurl
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response 10 of 19:
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Oct 9 21:01 UTC 1995 |
Fat
chance.
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remmers
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response 11 of 19:
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Oct 10 10:47 UTC 1995 |
Perhaps a study in contrasts will illuminate what I am
saying here. Here is the same passage presented two times--
once using the full width of an 80-column screen, the
second time according to the rules of proper formatting.
Notice how much clearer good formatting makes it. (The
passage is the opening paragraph of Vladimir Nabokov's
_Speak, Memory_.)
(1)
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence
is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the
two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more
calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an
hour). I know, however, of a young chronophobiac who experienced something like
panic when looking for the first time at homemade movies that had been taken a
few weeks before his birth. He saw a world that was practically unchanged--the
same house, the same people--and then realized that he did not exist there at
all and that nobody mourned his absence. He caught a glimpse of his mother
waving from an upstairs window, and that unfamiliar gesture disturbed him, as
if it were some mysterious farewell. But what particularly frightened him was
the sight of a brand-new baby carriage standing there on the porch, with the
smug, encroaching air of a coffin; even that was empty, as if, in the reverse
course of events, his very bones had disintegrated.
(2)
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense
tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of
light between two eternities of darkness. Although
the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views
the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he
is heading for (at some forty-five hundred
heartbeats an hour). I know, however, of a young
chronophobiac who experienced something like panic
when looking for the first time at homemade movies
that had been taken a few weeks before his birth.
He saw a world that was practically unchanged--the
same house, the same people--and then realized that
he did not exist there at all and that nobody
mourned his absence. He caught a glimpse of his
mother waving from an upstairs window, and that
unfamiliar gesture disturbed him, as if it were
some mysterious farewell. But what particularly
frightened him was the sight of a brand-new baby
carriage standing there on the porch, with the
smug, encroaching air of a coffin; even that was
empty, as if, in the reverse course of events, his
very bones had disintegrated.
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janc
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response 12 of 19:
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Oct 11 03:06 UTC 1995 |
I liked the first one. It fit all on one screen.
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remmers
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response 13 of 19:
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Oct 20 13:35 UTC 1995 |
Ah, but you must realize that you are using a screen
of antiquated size and shape, dictated by technology
that happily is becoming obsolete. For the proper
viewing of text, screens must approximate the shape
of a book page: thirty-five or forty lines tall and
just wide enough for about ten words per line plus
suitable margins. This is now feasible thanks to the
widespread availability of graphical user interfaces.
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janc
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response 14 of 19:
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Oct 20 15:45 UTC 1995 |
Maybe so. Now do it proportionally spaced.
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remmers
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response 15 of 19:
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Oct 21 11:51 UTC 1995 |
I shall be most happy to, when the technology becomes
readily available. In the meantime, I must make do
with approximations to the ideal.
But the technology is not far away. Witness the
world wide web. Already, graphical web browsers display
proportionally spaced text by default, although it is
still true that web transliterations of traditional
forms of electronic communication--email, usenet news,
conferencing--is in practice rendered in a monospaced
font. I believe that this will change as the technology
shifts more and more away from the character-only fixed-
pitch terminals and begins to take full advantage of
bitmapped graphics. Proportional fonts will become the
norm; monospaced ones such as courier will, like slide
rules and typewriters, come to be viewed as quaint
relics of a bygone era.
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janc
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response 16 of 19:
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Oct 22 02:21 UTC 1995 |
And ascii art will disappear into the same void that swallowed
cursor dancing.
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remmers
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response 17 of 19:
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Oct 22 12:05 UTC 1995 |
Perhaps, and certainly not without sadness and regret, I
must admit. However, it seems to me that the new display
technologies increase rather than diminish the opportu-
nities to intermix art and animation with our text.
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janc
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response 18 of 19:
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Oct 23 00:23 UTC 1995 |
Like electronic synthesizers increased the opportunities
for musical creativity and expression.
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remmers
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response 19 of 19:
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Nov 29 12:36 UTC 1995 |
Those who are disturbed by the | scan down the page with less
excessive width of a standard | back-and-forth eye movement.
terminal line may wish to con- | In fact, I wish that more
sider arranging their text into | people would format their text
columns, such as are found in | in this way. The main impedi-
newspapers and magazines. The | ment to their doing so is, of
smaller number of words per | course, the lack of software
line improves reading effi- | that supports it.
ciency by making it easier to |
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