Re: pagination control

>Exactly the sort of thing I was trying to suggest.
>
>>However, style sheets provide a much cleaner mechanism:
>>
>> <HR CLASS=PAGE>
>> <DIV CLASS=NOPAGE>
>> </DIV>
>>
>>with an appropriate style sheet that causes the HR to output a page
>>break instead of ink when printed, and DIV to float to the top of the
>>next page if it doesn't fit on the current page.
>
>Yeah, that would work too. I'm not sold on the idea that style sheets should
>be used to control pagination in hard-copy output though. I'm also not sure
>that's "cleaner" since you not only have to mark up the HTML but then you
>have to make sure there is an appropriate style sheet available to the printing
>program.
>
>Is page control really a "style" issue or is it at a lower level than that?
>My impression of "style" is that it affects how individual elements are
>rendered. Page control strikes me as a document structure issue. On the other
>hand, there's something to be said for using a subclass of HR as a page break
>for printing, but rendering it as a horizontal rule for online viewing.
>

The answer is: it's both a style and structure issue. Wherever possible, you
want the user to be able to use styles to determine pagination. That's
because, certain styles may convey particular meaning by inserting a page
break. But, sometimes, based on the output mechanism, you may want to insert
a hard page break. Having both combines simplicity with flexibility. The
problem with publishing to the web is that many variables can change the
flow of the text such as user defined document/browser width, user defined
leading, user defined type face choices, etc. Unless we remove all user
choices from web documents, the original creator of the documents cannot
accurately predict how the document will appear to the user, therefore,
choosing a hard page break may be inappropriate.


 

>Michael Johnson
>Relay Technology, Inc.
>
------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Kostello (kostello@workingweb.com)
"On the Internet, there's no morning or afternoon,
there's just interesting or boring" -- Will Hearst

Received on Monday, 5 June 1995 10:23:36 UTC