Quote:
Originally Posted by Quoth
This!
But maybe the equivalent of all Arial/Sans or all Times New Roman/Serif, which is a little easier to read than monospace.
Though they might have used *bold*, _this_ or /this/ for italic to indicate to the typesetter. MS Word and LO Writer can still autoconvert those on imported files.
Typewriters can usually do underline and strike-through by use of the Backspace key. They are the reason for the stupid use of ' and " instead of ‘ ’ “ ” in unprofessionally produced computer texts because the 1930 teletype used a typewriter keyboard and the updated versions of those were computer terminals from the 1950s to 1970s. The IBM PC, DOS and its keyboard in 1980 was a backward step to CP/M and terminals of the mid 1970s.
I tested a bunch of epub apps lately. Over 50% people read on a tablet or phone. I was surprised how many either just used the fonts on the tablet, or their own bundled fonts and had NO option to use the Publisher Embedded font. I even contacted some of the developers.
“Oh, now I see what you mean, that's a lot of work. I don’t know when I’ll fix it.”
As an aside:
Ray Bradbury, Enid Blyton and Isaac Asimov wrote a lot on typewriters and would have been astounded at the idea of multiple fonts. I had to type my weekly report on a really old typewriter. I hated it. I did get a a nice portable one to have as an ornament in my library/writing room. It's easier than the one in my first job, but I'd rather use Edlin on MSDOS 2.11 than a typewriter. I used Wordstar and clones for over 10 years and would not go back. I only use a text editor for notes. Or the odd scene of a new story. Paragraph Styles in the wordprocessor map to classes in CSS. Generally inline changes do not. So technically the idea of different fonts per character would be a nightmare to write, edit and produce to an ebook. It's common when writing to change who says something in a 3 person or more group. The current system makes that easy.
Oddly the PDF proof for paper not so awkward. The OP suggested it for ebooks, but mostly the delivery/view will fail for more than 90% of readers as Amazon has 90% of the English language ebook market. It would work for paper, but it's ghastly to read.
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Yes, I agree about not using Courier, or another monospace font, but I was making a point about the writing, which I know you know. If Raymond Chandler can hold us all spellbound with a typewriter--and none of us needed Arial Italic or Green Times New Roman or Papyrus to know that it was Carmen Sternwood speaking, rather than Vivian--and moreoever, he did it from 3rd person Limited, bygod, a writer today can construct a viable story without 50 or 10 or 5 different fonts.
I grew up learning on a plain, old, manual typewriter; that's what my parents gave me and it's what I used, starting in...8th grade, I think it was (when I was 12-13). I still, to this day, am a keyboard pounder, despite having been a seriously early adopter of desktop computing, as it was called back then. A
"personal computer," LOL.
Hitch