Re: Language (in)dependent hyphenation properties

For German, it is not an acceptable fall back to insert spaces between
letters for a narrow column. A significant portion of readers will
understand this to be *emphasized* text. This is true, even though this
form of emphasis is based on usage in Fraktur and typewritten style. It's
common enough still to affect the reader's perception.

A./

At 07:05 PM 11/26/98 +0100, Bert Bos wrote:
>Help requested, please...
>
>We are looking for ways to give Web designers more control over
>hyphenation/line-breaking, with the help of properties in CSS. We need
>expert advice:
>
>  - what do designers want to control?
>  - what is the accepted terminology for that?
>  - how do the rules differ per language?
>  - what happens if the text is multi-lingual?
>  - for each of the above, what are acceptable fallbacks? (window too
>    narrow, word too long,...)
>
>
>
>
>If you rather react to a concrete proposal, here is a strawman:
>
>    Property:    hyphenation
>    Value:       none | avoid | normal | any
>    Initial:     normal
>    Inherited:   yes
>    Applies to:  all elements
>    Percentages: N/A
>
>'None' disables hyphenation, 'any' allows breaks anywhere without
>regard for valid syllables, 'avoid' and 'normal' are two settings in
>between. ('Avoid', might, for example, disallow 3 hyphenated lines in
>a row.)
>
>    Property:    minimum-letters-before-break, minimum-letters-after-break
>    Value:       <number>
>    Initial:     1
>    Inherited:   yes
>    Applies to:  all elements
>    Percentages: N/A
>
>Limit the shortest syllables after/before which a word may be
>hyphenated. Typical values are 2 and 3.
>
>    Property:    line-breaking
>    Value:       normal | strict
>    Initial:     normal
>    Inherited:   yes
>    Applies to:  all elements
>    Percentages: N/A
>
>Determines two levels of line breaking rules for ideographic scripts:
>'strict' keeps more pairs of characters together than 'normal'.
>
>
>
>
>References to earlier discussions:
>
>  - http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/1997Apr/0085.html
>
>    About soft hyphens and hyphenation dictionaries.
>
>  - http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/1997Apr/0152.html
>  - http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/1997Apr/0204.html
>
>    Split off from the above thread, about hyphenation dictionaries
>    and how to find or select them, and about mark-up for hyphenation
>    exceptions. (Partly cross-posted between www-style and www-html.)
>
>
>
> 
>
>Bert
>-- 
>  Bert Bos                                ( W 3 C ) http://www.w3.org/
>  http://www.w3.org/people/bos/                              W3C/INRIA
>  bert@w3.org                             2004 Rt des Lucioles / BP 93
>  +33 (0)4 92 38 76 92            06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France
>
>
>

Received on Monday, 30 November 1998 03:58:16 UTC