Re: R: xy windows [again]; justification

[Robert Hemenway robhem@xxxxxxxx]

At 09:41 AM 12/17/98 -0500, N. Sivin wrote:
>Re K. Frank's message about the o1 default in XyWin 4.012,
>mine, I discover, is set at o1=1, which explains why WYSIWYG
>onscreen justification works perfectly for me.


Footnote

In 10.93, Stephen Crutchfield posted on CIS-IBMAPP a few of the
difficulties he had with the new XyWin running under OS/2, including this:

The default of o1=2 (adjusting screen/font mis-matches) seems ill-chosen. I
found many instances where text was truncated at the right margin for
certain font/size combinations. I chose o1=1, and got MUCH better results.

I changed to o1=1 back then and have found to reason to change to the default.

(I archived a batch of queries and the responses by the XyWrite sysop at
that time, but find nothing saved in response to Crutchfield?s comments.)

Brief rant on justification

It's best NOT to use XyWrite's justification, ever. Whether with the Speedo
fonts, TrueType, or PostScript, Xy's spacing algorithms are crude. Too much
space, often, between words. And with PostScript, especially, justification
is at times done by inserting spacing between the letters of a word. This
is a no-no in running text.

Justification is a complex business that really has no place in word
processors. Best to leave it to the DTP programs--Quark, PageMaker, Ventura
. . .

Anyhow, NO justification is the universal rule for manuscripts submitted to
publishers. Unjustified copy is easier to read and easier to deal with.

It's good, though, to soften the ragged right margin by dropping in soft
hyphens (Ctrl + -) to break the long words that are forced down to the next
line, and leave an unsightly gap. That will give you--what else?--a soft
rag. Scott Joplin ppp.

Or use short words.

Robert Hemenway
robhem@xxxxxxxx