- From: Aymeric Poulain Maubant <Aymeric.PoulainMaubant@enst-bretagne.fr>
- Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 10:36:20 +0200
- To: www-style@w3.org
First of all, I'm _not_ a typographer. I'm just a frenchman who searches his library. Here are the rules (in a mixed french/english vocabulary, as I do not know the exact english terminology) for spacing as given by the "Imprimerie Nationale". I think this will help, but you better should contact some frenchman from the Gutenberg project. BEFORE AFTER no space , espace-mots secable no space . espace-mots secable espace-mots insecable : espace-mots secable quart cadratin insecable ; espace-mots secable quart cadratin insecable ! espace-mots secable quart cadratin insecable ? espace-mots secable no space - no space no space ' no space as in " l'aventure " (I mean : "'" is not a quote here) espace-mots insecable ( no space no space ) espace-mots secable espace-mots secable [ no space no space ] espace-mots secable espace-mots secable << espace-mots insecable espace-mots insecable >> espace-mots secable (Last two are french quotes) Terminology : * "no space" : well, you see what I mean * "espace-mots secable" :== 'espace justifiante' :== the basic space (which can be expanded for justifying purposes) * "espace-mots insecable" :== you cannot have a newline here (this is not really because you _must_ see some blank between both characters separated by such a space) * "quart cadratin insecable" :== 'espace fine' :== This is a "espace-mots insecable" with a *fixed* measure of 1/4 cadratin (but I do not know the exact length for one cadratin). All in all, this makes 3 differents spaces in french, the first two with variable lengths and the last one with fixed length (well, truly there are some exceptions, which i.e. spaces of 1/2 quadratin which are "espace-mots insecable" with a fixed length). A normal "espace-mot" is 1/3 of a cadratin. Something funny now : "espace" is masculine in french, but when it is used in a typographical context, it becomes feminine. Aymeric
Received on Thursday, 26 September 1996 04:36:44 UTC