search

TEIC / TEI-Simple

Legacy Repository: TEI SimplePrint now merged into TEI Repository. Originally TEI Simple aimed to define a new highly-constrained and prescriptive subset of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) Guidelines suited to the representation of early modern and modern books, a formally-defined set of processing model rules that enable web applications to easily present and analyze the encoded texts, mapping to other ontologies, and processes to describe the encoding status and richness of a TEI digital text.
50 stars 12 forks source link

simple:letterspace: what does it mean? #18

Closed martindholmes closed 9 years ago

martindholmes commented 9 years ago

Unless this is a technical term from typography that I don't know, simple:letterspace is a bit confusing; it doesn't say what the size of the letter spacing is (wider than normal, narrower than normal?). Isn't it a bit like saying "font-size" without providing a size? If it's analogous to CSS letter-spacing, it needs a value of some kind, surely?

sebastianrahtz commented 9 years ago

Hmm. To me its just a term from typography meaning "extra spacing between letters". less spacing between letters doesnt really exist in traditional typography.

On 4 June 2015 at 22:31, Martin Holmes notifications@github.com wrote:

Unless this is a technical term from typography that I don't know, simple:letterspace is a bit confusing; it doesn't say what the size of the letter spacing is (wider than normal, narrower than normal?). Isn't it a bit like saying "font-size" without providing a size? If it's analogous to CSS letter-spacing, it needs a value of some kind, surely?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/TEIC/TEI-Simple/issues/18.

Sebastian Rahtz

Director (Research) of Academic IT

University of Oxford IT Services

13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN. Phone +44 1865 283431

Não sou nada.

Nunca serei nada.

Não posso querer ser nada.

À parte isso, tenho em mim todos os sonhos do mundo.

martinmueller39 commented 9 years ago

Is that what the Germans call "Sperrtext" You put a space between letters for e m p h a s I s

From: Sebastian Rahtz notifications@github.com<mailto:notifications@github.com> Reply-To: TEIC/TEI-Simple reply@reply.github.com<mailto:reply@reply.github.com> Date: Sunday, June 7, 2015 at 7:08 AM To: TEIC/TEI-Simple TEI-Simple@noreply.github.com<mailto:TEI-Simple@noreply.github.com> Subject: Re: [TEI-Simple] simple:letterspace: what does it mean? (#18)

Hmm. To me its just a term from typography meaning "extra spacing between letters". less spacing between letters doesnt really exist in traditional typography.

On 4 June 2015 at 22:31, Martin Holmes notifications@github.com<mailto:notifications@github.com> wrote:

Unless this is a technical term from typography that I don't know, simple:letterspace is a bit confusing; it doesn't say what the size of the letter spacing is (wider than normal, narrower than normal?). Isn't it a bit like saying "font-size" without providing a size? If it's analogous to CSS letter-spacing, it needs a value of some kind, surely?

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/TEIC/TEI-Simple/issues/18.

Sebastian Rahtz

Director (Research) of Academic IT

University of Oxford IT Services

13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN. Phone +44 1865 283431

Não sou nada.

Nunca serei nada.

Não posso querer ser nada.

À parte isso, tenho em mim todos os sonhos do mundo.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/TEIC/TEI-Simple/issues/18#issuecomment-109745276.

lb42 commented 9 years ago

You might use a particular kind of letterspacing to achieve that effect, but the term itself is used typographically to describe how much space there is between all the characters in one line. Distinguished from "kerning" which just applies to a pair of adjacent letters.

Soo you probably shouldnt be using it to mean just "more letterspace than normal" -- if you do, how would you say "less letterspace than usual"? May I suggest "looseSpace" and "tightSpace" (respectively) as more amusing alternative names?

However, according to http:// practicaltypography.com/letterspacing.html it isnt currently used to do anything other than promote looseness.

On 07/06/15 14:32, martinmueller39 wrote:

Is that what the Germans call "Sperrtext" You put a space between letters for e m p h a s I s

From: Sebastian Rahtz notifications@github.com<mailto:notifications@github.com> Reply-To: TEIC/TEI-Simple reply@reply.github.com<mailto:reply@reply.github.com> Date: Sunday, June 7, 2015 at 7:08 AM To: TEIC/TEI-Simple TEI-Simple@noreply.github.com<mailto:TEI-Simple@noreply.github.com> Subject: Re: [TEI-Simple] simple:letterspace: what does it mean? (#18)

Hmm. To me its just a term from typography meaning "extra spacing between letters". less spacing between letters doesnt really exist in traditional typography.

On 4 June 2015 at 22:31, Martin Holmes notifications@github.com<mailto:notifications@github.com> wrote:

Unless this is a technical term from typography that I don't know, simple:letterspace is a bit confusing; it doesn't say what the size of the letter spacing is (wider than normal, narrower than normal?). Isn't it a bit like saying "font-size" without providing a size? If it's analogous to CSS letter-spacing, it needs a value of some kind, surely?

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/TEIC/TEI-Simple/issues/18.

Sebastian Rahtz

Director (Research) of Academic IT

University of Oxford IT Services

13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN. Phone +44 1865 283431

Não sou nada.

Nunca serei nada.

Não posso querer ser nada.

À parte isso, tenho em mim todos os sonhos do mundo.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/TEIC/TEI-Simple/issues/18#issuecomment-109745276.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/TEIC/TEI-Simple/issues/18#issuecomment-109757249

sebastianrahtz commented 9 years ago

Sent from my iPhone

On 7 Jun 2015, at 14:32, martinmueller39 notifications@github.com wrote:

Is that what the Germans call "Sperrtext" You put a space between letters for e m p h a s I s

Yes, that's just what I am thinking off. Disgusting technique ..,

Sebastian

martinmueller39 commented 9 years ago

I don't like it much myself, but it is quite common in earlier books. More common on the Continent, I think , than in the Anglo world. And if my visual memory doesn't trick me, the space between the letters is less than the space between words. But I'm not sure about that.

From: Sebastian Rahtz notifications@github.com<mailto:notifications@github.com> Reply-To: TEIC/TEI-Simple reply@reply.github.com<mailto:reply@reply.github.com> Date: Sunday, June 7, 2015 at 8:59 AM To: TEIC/TEI-Simple TEI-Simple@noreply.github.com<mailto:TEI-Simple@noreply.github.com> Cc: Martin Mueller martinmueller@northwestern.edu<mailto:martinmueller@northwestern.edu> Subject: Re: [TEI-Simple] simple:letterspace: what does it mean? (#18)

Sent from my iPhone

On 7 Jun 2015, at 14:32, martinmueller39 notifications@github.com<mailto:notifications@github.com> wrote:

Is that what the Germans call "Sperrtext" You put a space between letters for e m p h a s I s

Yes, that's just what I am thinking off. Disgusting technique ..,

Sebastian

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/TEIC/TEI-Simple/issues/18#issuecomment-109758781.

sebastianrahtz commented 9 years ago

On 7 June 2015 at 15:02, martinmueller39 notifications@github.com wrote:

I don't like it much myself, but it is quite common in earlier books. More common on the Continent, I think , than in the Anglo world. And if my visual memory doesn't trick me, the space between the letters is less than the space between words. But I'm not sure about that.

not the same, of course, as using the same trick to justify paragraphs, which is simply evil. I agree, its a European thing. I claim its use to lessen letter-spacing is so rare that I am going to leave this one as is/

Sebastian

martindholmes commented 9 years ago

Keep the ident value, fair enough, but please clarify the desc so that ignoramuses like me with a CSS understanding can figure out what it means. Could I suggest "larger-than-normal spacing between letters, usually for emphasis"?

sebastianrahtz commented 9 years ago

you got it

On 7 June 2015 at 20:41, Martin Holmes notifications@github.com wrote:

Keep the ident value, fair enough, but please clarify the desc so that ignoramuses like me with a CSS understanding can figure out what it means. Could I suggest "larger-than-normal spacing between letters, usually for emphasis"?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/TEIC/TEI-Simple/issues/18#issuecomment-109792296.

Sebastian Rahtz

Director (Research) of Academic IT

University of Oxford IT Services

13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN. Phone +44 1865 283431

Não sou nada.

Nunca serei nada.

Não posso querer ser nada.

À parte isso, tenho em mim todos os sonhos do mundo.