Re: Fixed Width Spaces (was: Printing and Displaying DependentVowels)

From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Wed Mar 31 2004 - 07:10:45 EST

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    On 30/03/2004 18:01, fantasai wrote:

    > Ernest Cline wrote:
    >
    >>
    >> The main usage is with compound words such as "ice cream" or
    >> "Louis XIV" or commercial phrases such as "Camry SE" where for
    >> esthetic reasons an author would prefer that the space not expand
    >> upon justification,
    >
    >
    > Given wide enough measures, good text layout program should be able
    > to produce justified text without very noticeable changes in word
    > spacing.
    >
    >> NBSP doesn't break, but should it justify?
    >
    >
    > I believe NBSP should be, to the reader, indistinguishable from a
    > regular space. It does not have a semantic function as a compound-
    > word-joiner; it's just a space that doesn't break, and therefore
    > should be treated like any other space.
    >
    > ~fantasai
    >
    So perhaps the best thing to do in cases like Ernest's and mine, where a
    fixed width non-breaking space is required, is to use FIGURE SPACE,
    which I understand is non-breaking. But then perhaps this is too wide in
    some circumstances - in many fonts it is twice the regular width of SPACE.

    -- 
    Peter Kirk
    peter@qaya.org (personal)
    peterkirk@qaya.org (work)
    http://www.qaya.org/
    


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