Re: [Moderator Action] Re: Whose problem is a strange French typesetting habit...

On Oct 29, 2013, at 18:33 , Richard Ishida <ishida@w3.org> wrote:

> Fwiw, Unicode has U+202F NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE which is narrower than
> the normal nbsp.
> 
> The character U+2005 FOUR-PER-EM SPACE may equate to "quart de cadratin"
> (I don't know), but this is defined by Unicode as a break point for line
> wrapping.

Meaning that line break can occur at this point? Then this is not good for the French example. It should be a non-breaking space...

I.

> 
> RI
> 
> 
> On 26/10/2013 21:28, Eric Aubourg wrote:
>> (Eric sent this mail to the IG list, but that is a list where only members of the IG may post; the comment list is for everyone! -Ivan)
>> 
>> Dear Ivan,
>> 
>> Indeed, there should be a space in French before any "double" punctuation. But in good quality typesetting, this space is a thin space ("quart de cadratin"). An alternative if thin spaces are not available is a non-breaking space, but indeed is not always done properly on web sites.
>> 
>> Line breaking before a punctuation and no space before a punctuation are both mistakes in French typesetting... At Soleb we have automatic replacement rules that are used on all French texts - authors are usually very bad at this.
>> 
>> It would of course be a great thing to have CSS (best) or the reading system (universality issue) take this into account.
>> 
>> Eric
>> 
>> 
>> Le 26 oct. 2013 à 13:04, Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org> a écrit :
>> 
>>> Reading through Dave's text[1]...
>>> 
>>> There is an unusual French typesetting habit? rule? that I have not seen in any other language. Afaik, in French it is required to have a space before a '!', a ':', a '?', etc. sign. (But not before a full stop.). Ie, you are supposed to write
>>> 
>>> 	Bonjour !
>>> 
>>> and not
>>> 
>>> 	Bonjour!
>>> 
>>> I also know that it is frequent on, say, Web sites of French newspapers to have a mistake of the sort:
>>> 
>>> 	je luis ai dit
>>> 	:
>>> 
>>> i.e., the line break occurs at the space between 'dit' and the ':' characters (which is really disturbing).
>>> 
>>> The rules are not always followed; I just looked randomly at an iBook version of "Les misérables" and those spaces do not appear. I do not know whether this is considered as a serious mistake for French publishers (Pierre?).
>>> 
>>> The question is: whose job is it to control this?
>>> 
>>> - Up to the author, who should put a &nbsp; (non-breaking space) at the right place
>>> - The reading system, which should take this into account if the language is set to be French
>>> - CSS should have a control for this (afaik it currently does not)
>>> - anybody else?
>>> 
>>> I guess the more general issue is also what I referred to in[2]: how do we make it sure that the various requirements we may formulate are in line with different cultures and writing systems? Or at least they reasonably cover a major percentage of the globe's population?
>>> 
>>> Ivan
>>> 
>>> [1] http://w3c.github.io/dpub-pagination/index.html
>>> [2] http://www.w3.org/mid/5F94D807-5727-4406-B03A-DA91469C6EC4@w3.org
>>> 
>>> ----
>>> Ivan Herman, W3C
>>> Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
>>> mobile: +31-641044153
>>> FOAF: http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf.rdf
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 


----
Ivan Herman, W3C 
Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
mobile: +31-641044153
FOAF: http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf.rdf