Re: [Groff] Letterspacing

[Ted Harding]

On 26-Mar-2014 21:15:34 Peter Schaffter wrote:
> I'm still puzzled by Werner's blanket dismissal of letterspacing.
> Attached is a pdf of side-by-side columns of identical justified
> text.  In the RH column, 14 of the 27 lines of text have been
> adjusted with letterspacing, some loosened, some tightened.  The
> grey is clearly superior to the unadjusted column.
> 
> This kind of line-by-line letterspacing has been pretty
> much stock-in-trade since the earliest days of standalone
> phototypesetting systems, which is why I'm puzzled.
> 
> -- 
> Peter Schaffter
> http://www.schaffter.ca

I do the same myself -- though not very often. But in certain cases
it can make a spectacular difference to appearance and readability!

One of my preferences is to avoid hyphenated breaks where possible.
Usually I can achieve this by playing with the ".ss" request.
Default is ".ss 12", but taking it down to ".ss 10" or even ".ss 8"
can work nicely.

So there are two readily-available methods: varying letter-spacing,
or varying inter-word spacing.

One can use either method (whichever comes out best) or use them
in combination.

Best wishes to all,
Ted.

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E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <address@hidden>
Date: 26-Mar-2014  Time: 21:58:10
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