Re: Does the Crystal Goblet apply?

On 2 January 2014 12:28, Tony Graham <tgraham@mentea.net> wrote:

> The DPUB IG, with its focus on Publishers, might assume that professionals
> know all about these things, but it seems to me that there's lots of
> people who aren't professional designers and who don't have the strictures
> of a S1000D telling them how to lay everything out who could do with some
> help.


Very much agree. My crude view of this user is the classic Word author
who simply says, that looks OK - when Bringhurst would turn in his...
bed.

>
> An idea that I've had for a long time but never had the time to act on is
> to produce an XSLT function library to make it easier for someone sitting
> in an office somewhere to produce pages with proportions based on a
> chromatic scale (as Bringhurst seems to like) or margins with the "sound,
> elegant and basic medieval structure" (Bringhurst, again) of Villard de
> Honnecourt or based on a modular scale, rather than just thinking
> "Margins?  Hmmm, '1in 1in 1in 1in' will suffice."




Two points which strike me as well worth chasing Tony.
1. Don't use a typographsers language, i.e. KISS
2. (somehow) provide the sort of help you mention in
the second para above.


The first we should be able to do. The second is (perhaps)
an exslt 'library' of sorts?


regards



-- 
Dave Pawson
XSLT XSL-FO FAQ.
Docbook FAQ.
http://www.dpawson.co.uk

Received on Thursday, 2 January 2014 12:49:36 UTC