i18n-ISSUE-401: Clarify initial letter requirements and alignment points

http://www.w3.org/TR/2014/WD-ilreq-20141216/#first-letter
5.1 First Letter

This issue attempts to summarise various questions related to the First 
Letter section, which needs some clarification about requirements for 
positioning of highlighted 'initial letters'.

It currently says "in Devanagari the hanging baseline may be preferred".

This wording implies that in other cases the hanging baseline may not be 
preferred. If so, and if this refers to drop intial letters, what are 
the alternatives, and what are the font metrics or other considerations 
involved in alignment?

Are sunken and raised initial letters required, in addition to the drop 
initial? If so, what are the alignment points to be used for those?

See also Dave Cramer's email request 
(http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-i18n-indic/2014OctDec/0038.html)
--
I'm working on the CSS Line Layout specification [1], which covers
drop caps and other initial letter effects. I was very happy to see
examples of this in the Indic Layout Requirements document [2].

Can you clarify the bottom alignment point of the initial letter? The
text mentions the text-after-edge, but the illustrations are not
completely clear to me. Is there something in the font metrics that
would define this?

[1] http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-inline/
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2014/WD-ilreq-20141216/#first-letter
--

The text "the primary connection point connects the text-after-edge of 
the initial letter with the text-after-edge of the nth line, but the 
secondary connection point connects the hanging baselines of the initial 
letter and the initial line" isn't very clear, and doesn't seem to 
clearly relate to what is shown in the pictures.

It will probably help to look through 
http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-inline/#initial-letter-styling section 2, to 
get ideas for the topics to cover in ilreq. It would be good to note 
which requirements are *and* are not relevant to indic scripts, and what 
differences need to be taking into account in the way initial letters 
are positioned. (For example, is the formula at 
http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-inline/#sizing-initial-letters relevant?)

Received on Friday, 16 January 2015 16:15:30 UTC