Chinese Typography

[ericshliao]

Originally Posted by ahi

I assumed that hanzi character paragraphs are supposed to be in a grid, and that different lines of the same paragraph cannot therefore have different amount of spacing between characters.

I can't say your assumption is wrong. I am wondering what's the scenerio behind your assumption. It's commonly accepted that each glyph is monospaced, but in reality, if you have special purpose or are under restrictions, Chinese readers won't say it's wrong to draw glyphs in non-monospaced fashion. The page layout may be ugly, though.

I checked some paper books on my shelf and found that some are monospaced and some are not. And not monospace-placed layout are definitely more beautiful than non-monospaced ones.

Monospace is the specification used to design font, not the fundation or un-changed rule of Chinese glyphs, although in most circumanstances, it is right.

BTW, to be honest, I still haven't got what you really want.

BTW2, I think you might be interested in a fact:
In ancient times, Chinese text had no punctuation, readers had to distinguish sentences and paragraphs on their own when they were reading. Punctuation were introduced to Chinese text in later times, but I don't know the exact time. I remember that even in Ching dynasty (died 100 years ago), official documents didn't use punctuations. But since I am no historian or language expert, maybe I am wrong.

[LDBoblo]

Well, a lot of classical documents that are visibly structure-dependent omit punctuation. This is most commonly the case with things like poetry. A lot of old texts do use simple punctuation (like stops) though.

You're going to get spacing compression when pushing a full-justify most of the time, or you have to allow a 1-character margin for hanging pronunciation. I'm not positive how this impacts parentheses (probably forces early break and hanging if not respaced)

Most Chinese I read is left- or top-justified only and leaves ragged edges, and general Asian typography rules indicate what characters cannot begin or end a line.

If you want perfect monospaced gridding, you omit punctuation.

[Jellby]

I've looked at some Chinese books in Google Books, and I'd say the grid typesetting is not strict (when in horizontal mode), I've seem some lines compressed or expanded apparently to avoid a punctuation af the start of a line. When there is latin-alphabet text mixed with the Chinese, it seems it's enforced to fit the grid, but I've also seen some punctuation "half a box" wide (like the « and » marks).

This is from books published before 1980, like this one (take the third from last line in page 154).

[ahi]

Yeah... having double-checked my newspaper, in many articles I actually found similar situation like Jellby. Though many articles, or at least the majority of their paragraphs, were in grid mode.

I guess the answer to my question is: there is no way if one is to still maintain a grid, and so punctuation Chinese writing generally does not keep strictly to one.

Thanks, Everyone!

- Ahi

[lionfish]

Originally Posted by ericshliao

Why do you want to prevent "line-starting punctuation"? I live in a place where Traditon Chinese is native and it seems that we don't care about the issue. I don't remember there is such rule to avoid "line-starting punctuation".

I hope you are not chinese. There are rules stating clearly that all single punctuation marks (e.g. full-stop, comma) and ending parenthesis (e.g. ), ]) cannot start on a new line while all starting parenthesis cannot put at the end of a line. These rules also exists in Japanese.

Usually, each punctuation mark will occupy 1 full character space (with 2 exceptions) but this is not set in stone, especially in printing materials or documents created by word processors. In order to fully-adjust the text and obey the above rules at the same time, spaces occupy by the punctuation marks (including Arabic digits, English characters) in each line will vary a bit. Word processors such as MS Word will do this automatically for you. Web Browsers will also obey these rules but they won't fully-adjust the text so if you read a Chinese web page, the paragraphs are ragged instead.

Although LRF/LRS is designed by Japanese, they didn't include such rules when rendering Japanese/Chinese text.

[lionfish]

Originally Posted by ericshliao

BTW2, I think you might be interested in a fact:
In ancient times, Chinese text had no punctuation, readers had to distinguish sentences and paragraphs on their own when they were reading. Punctuation were introduced to Chinese text in later times, but I don't know the exact time. I remember that even in Ching dynasty (died 100 years ago), official documents didn't use punctuations. But since I am no historian or language expert, maybe I am wrong.

Actually, Chinese do have punctuations not later than the Qin (秦) Dynasty (221-207 B.C.) but this is very uncommon and have no official rules. Punctuations standards are introduced unofficially right after the Ching Dynasty and officially by the PRC Government and Taiwan Government afterwards.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by lionfish

I hope you are not chinese. There are rules stating clearly that all single punctuation marks (e.g. full-stop, comma) and ending parenthesis (e.g. ), ]) cannot start on a new line while all starting parenthesis cannot put at the end of a line. These rules also exists in Japanese.

Usually, each punctuation mark will occupy 1 full character space (with 2 exceptions) but this is not set in stone, especially in printing materials or documents created by word processors. In order to fully-adjust the text and obey the above rules at the same time, spaces occupy by the punctuation marks (including Arabic digits, English characters) in each line will vary a bit. Word processors such as MS Word will do this automatically for you. Web Browsers will also obey these rules but they won't fully-adjust the text so if you read a Chinese web page, the paragraphs are ragged instead.

Although LRF/LRS is designed by Japanese, they didn't include such rules when rendering Japanese/Chinese text.

Thanks, lionfish!

Are there any English language books that you would recommend regarding modern (and perhaps also classical) Asian typesetting... and... whatever the equivalent would be called when no mechanical press is used.

- Ahi

[ericshliao]

Originally Posted by lionfish

I hope you are not chinese. There are rules stating clearly that all single punctuation marks (e.g. full-stop, comma) and ending parenthesis (e.g. ), ]) cannot start on a new line while all starting parenthesis cannot put at the end of a line. These rules also exists in Japanese.

Unfortunately I am, and I got my education from kindengarten to university in Chinese language. I can say for sure that school don't teach such rule. Maybe there is such rule, but that's not what we care when we read or write. I guess such rule, if it does exist, only exists in professions of journalist or publication.
To be honest, we really don't care about it.
Would you please cite some rules? I am quite interested in them.

[ericshliao]

Originally Posted by lionfish

Actually, Chinese do have punctuations not later than the Qin (秦) Dynasty (221-207 B.C.) but this is very uncommon and have no official rules. Punctuations standards are introduced unofficially right after the Ching Dynasty and officially by the PRC Government and Taiwan Government afterwards.

I think the above info is from Wiki: http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A0%...AC%A6%E5%8F%B7

When I mentioned no punctuations in ancient times, I meant there was no commonly or widely accepted punctuation standards. In fact, people in ancient times would add their personal punctuations to what they were reading. So, we are not talking on the same surface.

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by ericshliao

Unfortunately I am, and I got my education from kindengarten to university in Chinese language. I can say for sure that school don't teach such rule. Maybe there is such rule, but that's not what we care when we read or write. I guess such rule, if it does exist, only exists in professions of journalist or publication.
To be honest, we really don't care about it.

Well that's the thing...Ahi is asking about typography rules, which implies looking for professional typesetting. In generic unpublished writing, it's no more a consideration than it is in English speaking countries with English writers. When setting books however, it's nice to have higher standards of formatting and typography than a typical high school or university essay.

[ericshliao]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

Well that's the thing...Ahi is asking about typography rules, which implies looking for professional typesetting. In generic unpublished writing, it's no more a consideration than it is in English speaking countries with English writers. When setting books however, it's nice to have higher standards of formatting and typography than a typical high school or university essay.

I have browsed several writing guides of master and doctor thesis (dissertation) specifically for Chinese, and I don't find any rule about punctuation that lionfish mentioned. So, maybe there is no such rules, not merely for "typical high school or university essay", but also for "higher" level writing.
I would assert that such rule, if there is any, must exists in professions of journalist or publication. That's not what I know of. But even if such rule does exists, I can say for sure that it's not commonly accepted.
BTW, I don't know the reason why punctuation should not start from the start of a line, both for English and for Chinese. Any explanation?

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by ericshliao

I would assert that such rule, if there is any, must exists in professions of journalist or publication. That's not what I know of. But even if such rule does exists, I can say for sure that it's not commonly accepted.
BTW, I don't know the reason why punctuation should not start from the start of a line, both for English and for Chinese. Any explanation?

Bookmaking is the field of the publisher. There are typography rules that govern text layout and alignment in virtually all formally written and published languages. Such typographic rules are predominantly to aid reading cohesion. Beginning a freshly broken line (not a new paragraph or sentence) with punctuation is a terribly inefficient method of reading that can adversely affect cognition. Virtually all word processors include basic spatial formatting rules to ensure that a stop or a comma for instance will not start a line, or that an opening parenthesis will not be the the final character on a line. That goes for Chinese as well.

They do not tell you when you write an English essay either that you do not start a line with a period. Ahi is not asking about the rules of basic writing (including what you find in style guides for dissertation writing--and I've read my share of Chinese dissertations, most of which are pretty pathetic), but those of typography. Outside a publishing house (excluding the crappy independent publishers that you find affiliated with schools, for instance), relatively few people learn a lot about paragraph typography, so it's not exactly surprising if the "average" Taiwanese and Chinese don't know much about it. Most Americans and English won't know much about English typography either. Laymen are not expected to know it, so Ahi's question was directed to the possible few that may be aware of the rules, not Chinese laymen.

[ericshliao]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

Bookmaking is the field of the publisher. There are typography rules that govern text layout and alignment in virtually all formally written and published languages. Such typographic rules are predominantly to aid reading cohesion. Beginning a freshly broken line (not a new paragraph or sentence) with punctuation is a terribly inefficient method of reading that can adversely affect cognition. Virtually all word processors include basic spatial formatting rules to ensure that a stop or a comma for instance will not start a line, or that an opening parenthesis will not be the the final character on a line. That goes for Chinese as well.

Definitely I am a layman for Chinese publication, but I can prove that you are wrong. Those rules applying to English publication do not absolutely apply to Traditional Chinese publication. Several books on my shelf contain lines with comma starting a line, including a dictionary edited by several language experts.
In fact, if the layout of each glyph is monospaced, it's inevitable that some comma will start a line. To avoid such problem, the font used must be proportional, not monospaced.
For English or other western language, there is space between words, so it's quite easy to avoid comma starts a line, both with monospaced or proportional fonts. But for Chinese publication, if decided to use monospaced layout, the rule to avoid comma starting a line is impossible.

[ahi]

LDBoblo is right in his analysis of my reasons for my question.

I suspect the issue of line-starting commas and such would never be addressed by most western typographic guides, being so simply as to be assumed to be universally agreed upon... but the issue seems magnified with Chinese (and with no obvious solution), if there is an aesthetic imperative toward typesetting as a grid. It is because of this that I figured there would be a standard way of dealing with it.

Does there seem to be consensus that the way Chinese addresses the incorrect line-starting punctuation issue is basically by ceasing to force the text into the tyranny of the grid as necessary OR foregoing the use of punctuation altogether?

- Ahi

[ahi]

Originally Posted by ericshliao

Definitely I am a layman for Chinese publication, but I can prove that you are wrong. Those rules applying to English publication do not absolutely apply to Traditional Chinese publication. Several books on my shelf contain lines with comma starting a line.

Are they high-quality books from large and reputable publishers?

The existence of poorly typeset books is no proof that typography (or typographic correctness) are non-existent concepts.

Also, LDBoblo did not say English typographic rules applied to Chinese--but rather that Chinese, along with all other written languages, had typographic rules of its own that higher quality publications would strive to obey in order to maximize readability.

- Ahi