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Re: Groff macro to make .UR and .UE links clickable in PDF?


From: Steve Izma
Subject: Re: Groff macro to make .UR and .UE links clickable in PDF?
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2020 14:27:58 -0400
User-agent: Mutt/1.10.1 (2018-07-13)

On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 09:55:01AM -0400, James K. Lowden wrote:
> Subject: Re: Groff macro to make .UR and .UE links clickable in PDF?
> 
> On Tue, 16 Jun 2020 13:36:41 +0200
> Jan Stary <hans@stare.cz> wrote:
> 
> > How do you suggest a long URL should be typeset?
> > It's an honest question: I don't know. It seems weird
> > to e.g. hyphenate words in URLs, as in http://some.compli-
> > cated.doma.in/file.html
> 
> I think the only solution is to wrap the URL, unmodified and
> unhyphenated, to fit.  To introduce a hyphen would to change the
> literal URL.  Hyphenation should never change the meaning of the
> text.   A user copying the typeset URL and pasting it into the
> browser's address bar shouldn't have to hunt down spurious
> hyphens.  

I find the whole idea of typesetting URLs in printed matter to be
full of contradictions, but this is mostly on account of how
contemporary Web frameworks construct URLs for dynamic pages and
need all sorts of variables set in the posted URL. If Web sites
were set up with mostly static pages in a normally organized
filesystem hierarchy, URLs would be simpler and more likely human
readable. As it is, no one is going to retype a URL that's longer
than a few words from a printed page. From an online PDF, the URL
shouldn't actually be typeset, I'd argue, but hidden in the link.

Anyway, my strategies for typesetting for a printed document:

- test the URL iteratively by removing as much as possible from
  the end of the URL until you have the minimum number of
  characters for getting to the page; usually this means removing
  all the set variables;
- if the resulting URL is longer than the output line length,
  break the line and begin the URL on the next line
- there are well-established rules for breaking a URL, which
  include: never add a hyphen to show a break; break the line
  such that the beginning of the next line looks like a
  continuation of the URL, e.g., with a slash;
- don't set the URL at all in the body of the text but use a
  footnote or endnote marker and set the URL in the footnote or
  endnote, since these are usually set in a smaller point size
  and gives you more flexibility for fitting on lines; if a text
  contains a lot of URLS, then set the notes as endnotes in a
  longer line length, if possible;
- some publishers use a style that ignores any part of the URL
  other than the site location; they expect that once the reader
  gets to the Web site, they can use the site's search mechanism
  for finding the appropriate material;
- since URLs are notoriously short-lived, encourage authors not
  to use them at all but to cite printed material rather than
  online material, or give complete bibliographic information
  about the citation and a short reference to the home page of
  the site.

One of the key issues is that a printed work is very likely to
outlast the accuracy of a URL, so don't diminish the usefulness
of a printed work but relying on URLs.

        -- Steve

-- 
Steve Izma
-
Home: 35 Locust St., Kitchener, Ontario, Canada  N2H 1W6
E-mail: sizma@golden.net  phone: 519-745-1313
cell (text only; not frequently checked): 519-998-2684

==
I have always felt the necessity to verify what to many seemed a
simple multiplication table.
        -- Ilya Ehrenburg (Soviet author and critic; he's not
           talking about mathematics)



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