2013/9/13 Stephan Stiller <stephan.stil...@gmail.com> > Hi Philippe, > > [...] EXCEPT if theses dots are separated by extra spaces (larger than > the extra inter-letter spacing on the same line, in case of justification > in a column of text between fixed left and right margins) > > Now *that* is a *good* argument for providing a separate ellipsis glyph. >
I don't think so : the ellipsis shoud still use the **same** extra inter letter spacing in justified lines as between letters within words to make the texxt more visually balanced. On the opposite the "spaced dots" will not be influenced by justification (in fact the number of dots does not matter as this is used for horizontal rulers, and it's more important to have dots in rulers to be vertically aligned and using regular spacing between successive line. These horizontal ruler dots are still separated from the end of the tabular text by at least a width which is AT LEAST as large as the standard SPACE separating words plus TWO standard interletter spacing or side bearings. These ruler dots are completely in a separate layer and positioned independantly of the tabular text, just to align perfectly within columns (and generally they are separated by much larger spaces than words as only a few dots are needed to fill the gaps and provide the intended visual hinting that helps tables with large columns with variable-length contents. Logically, these ruler dots are not part of plain text and are best represented as a single TAB, you should see them like decorations" i.e. styling just like underlining; they will be dropped completely if rows are separated by another way (thin border lines or alternating background colors).