groff
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

[Groff] Re: UTP paragraph spacing


From: Steve Izma
Subject: [Groff] Re: UTP paragraph spacing
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 11:25:19 -0500
User-agent: Mutt/1.2.5i

On Wed, Jul 17, 2002 at 06:57:46AM -0400, address@hidden wrote:
> --- Ralph Corderoy <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> > Personally, I with Meg in disliking the indented appearance, however I
> > long ago got used to it and fell we should stick with it because, as Jon
> > says, well-known and respected computing books do, Kernighan can be
> > added to that list.  Also, it's the norm in literature, not just
> > computing.
> 
> True, this was how I was taught in elementary school.  It works well when
> the text is mostly paragraphs and lists, even the long examples in Stevens
> work okay.  This book as a lot of 1-3 line indented "examples" with a
> sentence or two between them.  Sometimes the following text is indented
> and sometimes it is not.  It seems to me that the non-indented paragraphs
> set off the indented examples better, but this is probably a discussion we
> should have for the rewritten book.
> 
> I do think we should leave the spaces between the paragraphs, though.  I'm
> not a huge whitespace fanatic but in this case, I think it helps.
> 
> meg

Paragraph indents without paragraph spacing is standard for
reasons of ease of readability: the indent, obviously, gives a
quick, conventional visual clue of the paragraph break;
whitespace between paragraphs disappears if:
1) the paragraph ends the page with a full line of text;
2) block or indented quotes or examples use whitespace for
separation, but if the author intends the text following the
block to be a new paragraph (i.e., a new series of thoughts),
then the distinction disappears.

If a paragraph following an indented example starts with a
paragraph indent, then it's probably an intentional break.

A paragraph plus whitespace is deemed by almost all publishers
with style guidelines to be unnecessary. In some respect it's
ambiguous: does it represent a "greater" separation of thought
than a normal paragraph? Don't forget that most readers are used
to reading paragraphs without extra separation and they bring
such assumptions with them to everything they read.

If you feel like the paragraphs look too crowded, then I suggest
you probably prefer more leading to lighten up the page, so we
should add more space between the lines.

-- 
Steve Izma,                               (519) 884-0710 ext. 6125
    Wilfrid Laurier University Press      FAX: (519) 725-1399
    Waterloo, Ont., Canada N2L 3C5        address@hidden

reply via email to

[Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread]