Re: [css3-text] Tibetan tsek justification

Etan Wexler writes:
> 
> When justifying Tibetan texts, is it acceptable under any of the 
> 'text-justify' values to use tsek marks as justification? Is this 
> traditional method even used in electronically composed texts? Is it 
> possible, before the CSS3 Text module reaches Proposed Recommendation, 
> to add a note explaining the eventual verdict?

I think this way of justifying is neither required nor forbidden by
the current text, so adding a note that says that it is allowed would
not change the formal part of the spec in any way.

At first sight, I'd say that adding tsek marks after the last word to
fill out a line is only compatible with the 'auto' value of
'text-justify', though. In particular, 'inter-cluster' applies to
Tibetan and says to add white space inside the line.

If you want more than just an informal note, but want to give
designers the option of explicitly specifying this mode of
justification, rather than leaving it to the UA, then that would count
as more than an editorial change, I think.

> Does anybody care?

The fact that Unicode spends a page on it, seems to indicate that it
is of more than historical interest and that Tibetans might indeed
want to explicitly request the traditional rather than the modern
algorithm. Any experts on Tibetan typography in this group? Or anybody
who knows an expert?

> 
> (For those who don't follow the tsek question, I refer you to The 
> Unicode Standard 4.0.1, section 9.11, "Tibetan"; see the subsection, 
> "Traditional Text Formatting and Line Justification".
> <http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode4.0.0/ch09.pdf>)

Interesting reading, indeed.

I looked for images of Tibetan text on the Web. I found a handful,
some not justified, others justified with spaces, but none with extra
tsek marks at the end of the line. Maybe this is only useful for
hand-written texts and not when you have a computer that can do
better?



Bert
-- 
  Bert Bos                                ( W 3 C ) http://www.w3.org/
  http://www.w3.org/people/bos/                              W3C/ERCIM
  bert@w3.org                             2004 Rt des Lucioles / BP 93
  +33 (0)4 92 38 76 92            06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France

Received on Friday, 6 August 2004 13:54:38 UTC