Re: Special Help Please :)

Julian I-Do-Stuff wrote:
[...]
The LaTeX code is being produced from the source document in Microsoft
Word with VBA code I have written myself (the Word-to-LaTex converter
I tried wasn't suitable);

Using the .docx file format and XSLT is perhaps more robust, but whatever you're happy with...

2. Interspersed with the narrative is "other text" in different fonts,
at different sizes, with centered or other alignment. typically in
small blocks of 1-3 paragraphs, typically within narrowed margins.
This "other" text I have been handling by implementing the relevant
features of the Word styles as environments.

That's fairly standard, although using Word named styles in a template for the entire document (especially when transforming via XSLT) allows you to map style-name to environment or command more easily.

3. Some text is patterned across multiple lines/paragraphs;
[...]
one of which includes placing single words
in a circle around a short paragraph as illustrated below

word
word word
| the |
word |-central para-| word
word word

Are the surrounding words printed the normal way up, or did you mean typesetting along a curved path? (see pstricks documentation for that)

In this case, the central paragraph occupies two lines and the words
to left and right of it should be be vertically centred in the height
of the central paragraph. The desired result was achieved in Word by
using a table.

The same can be done with the tabular environment.

3. Some text strings are required to smoothly increase/decrease in
font size (on the same line spacing).

Like Alice's _Mouse's Tale_?

I modified the Diminuendo
example to provide a Crescendo, but owing to character spacing
problems reverted to simply manually setting the character heights for
the limited number of strings where this feature is required (defining
new commands for certain substrings).

Yes, sometimes you just do it by hand...

4. There are three levels of strengths of break to be indicated (one
chapter runs to 60,000 words and needs more subdivisions); each of
these is to be a "Wingding 2" type asterisk, whose size indicates the
strength of the narrative break.

Use \@startsection to redefine \section, \subsection, etc to do this (see book.cls)

Because the Windows "Wingding 2" font is a Symbol font, I found it
impossible to use as I had the other fonts, and therefore resorted to
generating the required shape in Mathematica.

I'm not familiar with whatever is special about a Symbol font that prevents it being used.

Would it not have been possible to pick a suitable asterisk from (eg) the bbding font?

Owing to limitations in
the latter the bounding box cannot be fully controlled; I cannot re-
edit the EPS in e.g. Photoshop because when PS re-renders on save it
introduces visual artefacts. I'm therefore stuck with imperfectly
sized graphics (or nasty looking graphics).

Why Mathematica? A drawing package like Inkscape should be able to do this.

5. Good book design - specifically recto-verso line alignment, though
where special fonts & sizes are used this requirement is relaxed.

I'm happy for you -- some publishers require alignment even when special fonts and sizes make it impossible.

A. Putting the break graphic into a fixed height space (nominally 2
lines of the standard font) such that the break height remains exactly
the same everywhere (including at the top of pages).

\vbox to0pt{stuff} is your friend here, as it will not contribute anything to the accumulating page depth.

The graphic must
remain with (i.e. be above) the paragraph that follows it, so it may
not occur on its own at the bottom of a page.

That's exceptionally unusual: normally the section-break implied by asterisks, swelled rules, and other decorative impedimenta occurring at a page-break are required to stay at the foot of the page. But perhaps the author is trying to mess with the reader's mind...

The largest graphic is
16.9pt tall, yet using \vspace* to add precisely the nominally correct
amounts of spacing above and below leads to some breaks being 36pt as
expected and others in excess of 38pt... the recto-verso line
misalignment is unpleasantly noticeable.

Check the value of \parskip. Sometimes \vspace* adds a \parskipamount.

B. Centering... yes, something as apparently simple as horizontal
centering. I simply wish to center certain paragraphs, leaving myself
the freedom to adjust spacing above and below without something
thinking it knows better. I have been able to adjust the margins by
several methods (Memoir's adjustwidth, directly setting the margins,
etc.) but whilst I can center text or inset the margins *alone* (i.e.
not introduce vertical spacing artefacts) I cannot seem to control
both margins and alignment and not get extra vertical spacing at the
top (which, in the case of adjustwidth is due to the underlying List
environment). In the places where I want normally indented paragraphs
in narrower margins there is no problem.

I haven't ever used memoir, so I don't know what it's doing here, but it sounds as if the page-building mechanism is detecting what it believes to be more than one paragraph break before or after your centered material, and if the \parskip value contains any flexibility, it might show up here as additional space.

How might I eliminate the extra before vertical spacing of adjustwidth
or otherwise centre text within narrowed margins in a way that leaves
me in control of the vertical? [TeX/LaTeX.. *The Outer Limits* of
typesetting?]

This probably needs someone skilled in the internals of the memoir classes.

I hope that was informative....

Very, and it sounds very challenging. Please keep us updated.

///Peter
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Special Help Please :)
    ... typically within narrowed margins. ... in a circle around a short paragraph as illustrated below ... font size (on the same line spacing). ...
    (comp.text.tex)
  • Special Help Please :)
    ... special fonts (I'm well aware of guidelines concerning font diversity, ... typically within narrowed margins. ... the central paragraph occupies two lines and the words ... font size (on the same line spacing). ...
    (comp.text.tex)
  • Re: User Form with common formatting options found in dialog boxes
    ... You could easily call up the built-in dialogs for modifying the paragraph ... formatting of the style or modify the font formatting of the style. ... if you only want to deal with a few fonts and line spacing ...
    (microsoft.public.word.vba.userforms)
  • Re: Line Spacing is mysteriously locked at about 14 points.
    ... > And there's no Spacing Before/After? ... But there are not any larger characters including ... If you change a paragraph from 12 points ... If you've changed the font size of the text and the line spacing ...
    (microsoft.public.word.pagelayout)
  • Re: text formatting....AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
    ... If the person who originally created the text was more creative than usual, you might also have to know line spacing and other formatting characteristics. ... you might be able to approximate the look if you can find a font that is similar to that used on the shirt. ... In MS Word, the effect of having "different spaces between the words" is called "justified", which simply means that each line goes all the way to the margins on both sides -- if the line is long enough to fill the space between the margins. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)