Re: hyphenation character data

On 10/05/2011 05:11 PM, Bjoern Hoehrmann wrote:
> * fantasai wrote:
>> Are there any resources that CSS can point to for indicating the
>> appropriate hyphenation character for a particular language?
>
> Appropriate is what the author specifies, XSL FO for instance allows
> authors to specify the character to use. If I had to find a formal
> reference for German, I would probably check DIN 5008, but you quite
> quickly run into ironic situations like the german Wikipedia article
> on the matter saying U+2010 is the right character but actually using
> U+002D in the example for hyphenation in line wrapping. I am sure you
> would run into annoyed authors if browsers used U+2010 where authors
> would find U+002D more appropriate, or vice versa, starting with me.
>
> I also note that "appropriate" depends on, for instance, whether the
> character is widely available and available in a suitable font, so
> you don't get strange rendering due to font substitution. It does not
> seem that there is a site that discusses this in great detail. My im-
> pression also was that typographical conventions differed beyond the
> choice of character, like in whether you put the character at the end
> of the previous line or at the beginning of the next, but I could not
> immediately find a reference so I might be misremembering or this may
> no longer be true for in-use systems.
>
> Could you clarify whether the CSS Working Group means to make this not
> author-configurable, is just looking for good defaults, or maybe just
> some helpful tutorial-like documentation?

We need good defaults. See
   http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-text/#hyphenate-character

~fantasai

Received on Thursday, 6 October 2011 00:43:10 UTC