Re: DTP with XHTML+CSS

Christoph Paeper wrote:
> David Woolley:
> > There are at least two ways in which DTP and HTML+CSS differ:
> > 
> > - a typical DTP package has access to the whole document, but web 
...
> > - a DTP package can be used in a closed loop environment, where the 
...
> 
> Nevertheless there is at least one product (Yes-Logic Prince) using 
> X(HT)ML + CSS to generate print-outs, that also implements the CSS3 
> Columns Draft.

I thought what I wrote was that going beyond CSS columns was going too
far, not that CSS3 columns were too far.

Columns do cause a problem for progressive rendering, and, although
parts of the CSS3 Box Model draft say that progressive rendering
is a desirable attribute, it might be better to say that documents
that cannot be incrementally rendered cause problems for the viewer
(either rendering delays - a real problem with many table based layouts,
or movements to fix-up the layout).

The open loop problem isn't particularly bad for CSS3 columns, because
the sprecification requires that the height be adjusted to balance them,
so you don't end up with empty columns (or in the more general case of
the proposal, empty boxes if the font is disproportionately small.

Received on Tuesday, 14 June 2005 20:08:11 UTC