Re: [O] Rationale for *text* -> \alert{text} for Beamer export?

[John Hendy]

On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 10:00 AM, Marcin Borkowski <address@hidden> wrote:
> Dnia 2013-05-01, o godz. 09:17:23
> John Hendy <address@hidden> napisał(a):
>
>> Greetings,
>>
>> Just wondering about the rationale behind using *bold* markup for
>> \textbf{} in LaTeX export and to \alert{} in Beamer. Was this a
>> frequently voiced request? I'm sure I can dig into this somewhere and
>> change it, but if the majority prefers bold (not saying they do!),
>> should that be the default?
>>
>> I'd prefer bold, personally. I don't like red table column titles or
>> in lists.
>
> Just my 2 cents:
>
> * In general, you shouldn't use boldface in printed documents (unless
>   you have a good reason.  A /very/ good, thought out reason.  And
>   usually you haven't one;).).

Do you have sources for this? I googled "why you shouldn't use bold"
and "why you shouldn't use bold for papers" and some others. I
couldn't find anyone making that case in the first two pages of hits.
I guess I expected that if this was common knowledge it wouldn't be
hard to find.

>
> * In presentations, things are indeed quite different.
>
> * Keeping that in mind, \alert{...} is /better/ than \textbf{...}, just
>   like \emph{...} is better than \textit{...}: it is semantic, not
>   visual markup.

Can you explain semantic vs. visual? As in you can more easily
customize the meaning of \alert{} or \emph{} whereas \textbf{} and
\textit{} only has one meaning? Sort of like using a css tag which can
be later customized vs. specifically calling out exactly what you're
thinking you want to do at the moment?

> * If you do insist on boldface as "alerting", just say
>     \setbeamerfont{alerted text}{series=\bfseries}
>   in your preamble.  Keep in mind, however, that this will break things
>   if you use alert<...>{...}.  Take this document, for instance:
>
> \documentclass{beamer}
>
> \begin{document}
> \begin{frame}
>   This is \alert{alerted} text.
>
>   And this is \alert<2>{alerted} only on the second slide.
> \end{frame}
> \end{document}
>
>   In it, text will "wobble" when changing slides.  This is ugly.
>

Sure, and understood. In general, I'm using *text* simply to call
attention to something important. I work in product development, so
something like:

Customer response to product sampling:
- *US:* blah blah blah
- *China:* blah blah blah
- *India: blah blah blah

Using *text* is simply to call attention to the fact that the *word:*
is an "in-line header" of sorts for what is to follow. Also, it lets
readers easily compare the bolded text and pick the bucket they care
to explore vs. having it blend in with the prose that follows.
Regardless of the opinions on bold vs. red text, I find bold (or
italics) are more conventional, whereas red conveys "problem" or
"yikes" and simply seems more counter-conventional, so I feel it
distracts more than a more typical typeface emphasis method.

In essence, I simply want to call attention to text, but not too much
and red stand out like a sore thumb, in my opinion, far more than bold
or italic. It's so dominant that it over-does it's job of emphasizing.

> * So, what you probably want, is to say
>     \setbeamercolor{alerted text}{fg=red!50!black}
>   in your preamble, so \alert{...} means a color in the midpoint (in RGB
>   linear space) between red and black (you might want to experiment with
>   percentages other than 50% or wholly different colors, of course).
>

Thanks for letting me know how to tweak and mute down a bit. I can
play with that... though I probably just want *text* to equal bold, or
I'll decide to use /text/ instead.


John

>> Thanks,
>> John
>
> HTH,
>
> --
> Marcin Borkowski
> http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
> Adam Mickiewicz University
>