Quote:
Originally Posted by HoraceWimp
It's hardly new fangled (although it might be for ereaders), it's been around for years in graphic design layout programs. It's basically just a dictionary (user customisable in most instances) containing words that should be hyphenated with guidelines as to where the hyphen should fall. It should be a doddle to include this within ereader software.
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I was just being sarcastic.
Go and google up pictures of THE first boo printed using movable type. Yes, the Gutenberg Bible. Notice that the text is hyphenated. Also notice that hyphens go outside the text bounding box - this is less disruptive than having them inside and creating optical "notch" on the right edge of text.
Yet, Kindles and other readers lack such fundamental typographical tool, together with 50 other typographic features that were developed in the last 560 years since the first book was typeset using movable type.
BIG Picture of the Gutenberg bible page with hyphenation:
Quote:
Originally Posted by HoraceWimp
Incidentally, it isn't just used within justified text (although it does help immensely with avoiding those ugly wide inter-word spaces) but also with aligned left text as well, which helps avoid particularly short lines.
Widow and orphan toggles would be helpful too.
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and quite a few other features. Contemporary e-book readers have more processing power than the PCs first used to typeset the texts using LaTeX or inDesign 1.0, yet, there is no reader that would be able to do a half decent job.
See the replies to my original post. The vast majority of readers just Do. Not. Care. Period.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HoraceWimp
The presentation, control and flow of text in almost all ereaders is still pretty archaic, particularly given the ability of a user to over-ride most ebook settings.
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This is what I was trying to point out. We have thrown 560 years of development in the area of typography out of window.