Jean Hollis Weber wrote:
I'm cross-posting this to Docs, in case someone there (who doesn't
read the Authors list) might know of some resources for Gary and me.
Gary Schnabl wrote:
Is there some documentation of disclosed or undisclosed information
of whatever options Writer has for setting type? MS Word has a number
of such options which can be used by an editor to tweak the text.
What I have been experimenting with the past couple weeks (with Word
2007) is attempting to lay out text manually much like a printer
might. This means that the orphan/widow control is disabled and the
leading for all paragraph styles is constant (and generally multiples
of the lowest leading value--typically 13.2 pt (120%) for an 11 pt
font size, for example.
For those times when the text doesn't fit the bottom of the page
perfectly, some tweaking of the interparagraph spacing is used (e.g.,
1/2 and 1 1/2 leading value). However, for those books where there is
not any real space between text bodies, this may cause some problems.
Usually, the most problems might arise mostly for three-line
paragraphs--if an objective is to not allow an widows or orphans.
Does anybody have any practical experience with this, and is there a
body of literature anywhere with some suggestions as it pertains to
Writer specifically?
By coincidence, I was just starting to investigate typesetting
features, tweaks, and workarounds in Writer. So far I haven't looked
at vertical tweaks (leading, line spacing, para spacing, and so on),
but that's next on my list. If I find something, I'll let you know.
Please do the same!
What I have been looking for is a way to define a paragraph style with
a different character style (for example, all caps) for the first
word. I know how to manually apply a character style, of course, but
I'd like to have it part of the para style. Drops caps would do the
job, but drop caps have a minimum height of 2 lines. Perhaps someone's
produced a macro for this purpose? I didn't spot anything in the
Extensions repository (though I could have missed it), but I have a
lot of other places to search. If someone can point me in the right
direction, that would be great.
--Jean
Some observations...
The manner I initially set up a page design is to set a fixed number of
lines of solid text for a particular paper size. I tend to use the
"perfectly proportioned" margin scheme that is described on About.com.
Because we're dealing with a print doc (e.g., book), a gutter is
necessary--around 20 pt. I use 18 pt a lot because printers want one
about that size. My overall goal is to have the last line on each and
every page align perfectly at the bottom. Because constant leading is
used, the lines on opposing pages should also register perfectly, if
done well.
I have produced a spreadsheet where the independent variable is the
number of lines of body text for a certain paper size. The mathematics
for setting the margins is all performed by the spreadsheet. However, in
order to keep the left/right margins to integer figures, instead of
something to the nearest 1/100 of a point, I take up the slop of the
fractional margins in the gutter--having the gutter to a value where the
horizontal margins are integers and thereby, the usable width is also an
integer.
If you see an attractive typographical layout, you are free to copy it
because typographical issues are not covered by copyright (unless
they're covered in a book about typography...). There is an electronic
ruler where one could actually measure the dimensions and such of PDFs
on screen and the like. It's called Cool Ruler--Google it for a free
download.
Both Writer and Word are not good typesetting applications. However, I
tend to initially use Writer and then see how well Word "copies" the
Writer layout, as Writer is more flexible than Word. But if the client
wants decent typesetting, that should be done with FrameMaker
(especially if cross-refs are needed), InDesign (doesn't do x-refs), or
QwarkXPress after the final version sent to the printer is converted
from Word.
I might describe much of the finer points on my temporarily inactive
blog or forum sites. I am in the final stages of transforming a 100 MB
DOC file of a Cisco CCNA network-engineer book layout for an SME in the UK.
It now has some 528 A4 pages on the PDF produced from Word and sent to
Lulu. I initially converted the DOC sources to Writer and worked there
applying the paragraph styles and then had the author figure out how he
wanted his headings to go. (The initial layout was a mess...)
After it looked OK, and a few trial PDFs were ported from Writer, the
ODT source was reconverted back to Word--now only 43 MB. The last phase
is typesetting it using FrameMaker--this time with linked graphics for
the 190 figures. We'll then see how much better it will appear and
handle with FrameMaker. The FM template is finished and a skeleton book
with ToC for the two parts is already operational. Now comes the
insertion into FrameMaker of the 190 graphics from Word to OOo Draw for
extraction/conversion to TIFFs and then linked into FrameMaker.
Hopefully, Lulu will use the FrameMaker version, as FrameMaker's
typesetting algorithms are better than either Word's or OOo's.
Gary
--
Gary Schnabl
2775 Honorah
Detroit MI 48209
(734) 245-3324
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