Re: [latinreq] Grids? (baseline grids)

Thanks Dave

On a general note I think the epub3 spec does a good job but from a little research it appears that a lot of software uses the multi-colum spec to paginate material making that difficult to take advantage of. However I mostly deal with digital publishing on the web, not epubs, where paginating stories has a number of other obstacles that I won’t go into in this thread.
  
> 1. When there is textual content outside the main flow (marginal notes, pull quotes, sidebars, etc.), it may have different line-spacing and text size than the body text. How are such elements aligned with the main text? Would the last line of the object align with a line of text in the main content? Does this change if there are backgrounds and borders on the secondary box?
>  

A baseline grid is usually set up as a factor of the font size and line height, not the font size itself. For example, a baseline grid of 4px supports text that is 16px/20px, 12px/16px, 8px/12px and similar. Unfortunately with CSS the leading will need to be split and content block shifted to get the baselines to match perfectly between different content objects.
NOTE: Text size can scale more fluidly as long as the line-height remains a multiple of the baseline grid.

> 2. A related question is how images (especially with captions) are positioned and aligned.
Working with images like this is impossible on the web. In designing magazine layouts in InDesign the text would snap to the grid while images would have to be slightly cropped or trimmed to fit perfectly. In my work at Treesaver (magazine style publishing engine for the web) we either inset captions that floated over images that aligned with the body of the article.

> 3. In multi-column text, are the last lines of each column generally expected to base-align? Is space above and below heads, extracts, etc. adjusted to make this happen?
Yes, all text designated to be on the baseline grid should align to the grid everywhere. Depending on the settings and content lines may be off by a multiple of the grid.



_________________

Scott Kellum
scott@scottkellum.com
(347) 422-7572

scottkellum.com


On Friday, January 10, 2014 at 12:26 PM, Cramer, Dave wrote:

> On 1/10/14 11:57 AM, "Scott Kellum" <scott@scottkellum.com (mailto:scott@scottkellum.com)> wrote:
>  
>  
>  
> >  
> > Regarding more advanced page layouts like in magazines. Many some people on this thread might not care about them much but for me, I am in this group to bring that perspective. There is very little support available for these types of layouts in any digital medium but for my use cases multi-column layout with baseline grid alignment is important.  
>  
> I'd love to get descriptions of some of these requirements, as I expect many apply to all sorts of material. Perhaps we can start modestly. Some questions I have:  
>  
> 1. When there is textual content outside the main flow (marginal notes, pull quotes, sidebars, etc.), it may have different line-spacing and text size than the body text. How are such elements aligned with the main text? Would the last line of the object align with a line of text in the main content? Does this change if there are backgrounds and borders on the secondary box?  
>  
> 2. A related question is how images (especially with captions) are positioned and aligned.  
>  
> 3. In multi-column text, are the last lines of each column generally expected to base-align? Is space above and below heads, extracts, etc. adjusted to make this happen?  
>  
> I'm wary of discussing grids directly, as that seems to be more of a design tool used to achieve certain kinds of layouts. I see the goal of this document as describing the end result, not the tools or mechanisms used to create that end result.  
>  
> Thanks,  
>  
> Dave  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
> This may contain confidential material. If you are not an intended recipient, please notify the sender, delete immediately, and understand that no disclosure or reliance on the information herein is permitted. Hachette Book Group may monitor email to and from our network.