Re: Special Help Please :)

On 4 Dec, 22:40, Peter Flynn <peter.n...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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

Thank you Peter!

Apologies for formatting here (Web i/f) but a few comments on your
input.

Word->LaTeX. .docs and XSLT... probably... except I'm still using Word
XP/2002. There are features of Word 2007+ that made it unsuitable to
continue the book development in later versions (e.g. always on multi-
colour comment highlighting... the book contains ~15k comments and the
result was visually unusable).

Text patterned across multiple lines/paragraphs. No, not typesetting
along a curved path - words are oriented as shown, . I'll look into
the tabular environment.

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

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

I don't know the bbding font, but I looked at lots and none of the
shapes actually met my requirements - which are rather specific (for
obscure reasons not worth delving into here). Why did I use
Mathematica to produce the pseudo Wingding? Because I had already
created the shape there. (I know Inkscape (though haven't used it for
a couple of years) and when I checked the app. specs recently didn't
see any EPS output capability).

Re recto-verso line alignment. Some publishers require the impossible
alignment of lines of different heights etc.? Why am I not
surprised :)

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...

I didn't think it was unusual... but that's ignorance for you, and it
looked *very* odd the other way around. I wouldn't say I am trying to
*mess with* the reader's mind with such things

Graphic placement is I believe now sorted thanks to advice received in
another thread (http://groups.google.co.uk/group/comp.text.tex/
browse_thread/thread/17858483683b1ab2/3060314d24f87689?lnk=gst&q=Julian
+I-do-stuff#3060314d24f87689)

If you get this far into the reply - can \vksip also introduce
\parksip amounts? I have code identical on >200pp (so far) and in only
one or two places something is producing an extra line space that I've
been unable to remove/find the cause of..

If I can recall what the Mouse's Tale looked like, then no, not
really, but sort of... maybe.

Centering & Memoir - Lars Madsen has already been very helpful with
some stuff... maybe he will also have something to say about this.

Challenging? So it would seem. I thought I was being rather
straightforward in my ambitions... before I started.

Thanks for your interest and careful consideration... I doubt you've
heard the last from me just yet, so there will in all probability be
further news.

Julian
.

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). ... I'm not familiar with whatever is special about a Symbol font that prevents it being used. ...
    (comp.text.tex)
  • Special Help Please :)
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    (comp.text.tex)
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