Re: [css-break] another fragmentation question

fantasai wrote:

 > On 07/19/2013 03:47 AM, Morten Stenshorne wrote:

 > > http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-break/#best-breaks
 > >
 > > The spec isn't very strict about this, other than "don't break more than
 > > you have to" and "don't break inside truly unbreakable stuff". But it
 > > also seems to suggest that fragmentainer heights be balanced (like in
 > > multicol?), but that seems weird to me. If you have a text document that
 > > needs one and a half pages, should you then make both pages 75% full,
 > > rather than filling the first one completely and leaving the second one
 > > half empty?
 > 
 > I think "end of content" counts as a forced break. I'm not entirely
 > sure what was in mind when these rule were written (they date back
 > to CSS2.0). I've asked Håkon if he remembers what was on his mind
 > wrt even heights, since I believe he was in charge of that chapter...
 >    http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-CSS2-19980512/page.html#q16

Where the interesting bits are:

 - Break as few times as possible. 
 - Make all pages that don't end with a forced break appear to have about the same height.

One motivation for making pages about the same height is avoid print
showing through to the other side on a double-sided print. This is
something typographers care about, especially when paper is thin.

(Ideally, one should also try to align lines so that lines on both
sides of the paper "hide" each other. But that was one bridge too far
in 1998, and still is.)

But I agree with Morten that having two half-filled pages isn't ideal.
If we consider the end of content a forced break (which seems
reasonable), there's no need to try balance the last page with the
rest. This is consistent with how balancing works in multicol; see
Example 30:

   http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-multicol

Cheers,

-h&kon
              Håkon Wium Lie                          CTO °þe®ª
howcome@opera.com                  http://people.opera.com/howcome

Received on Thursday, 10 October 2013 09:53:37 UTC