RE: [css3-font] Extension of font-stretch property

I support the idea to artificially scale glyphs to condense/extend, but I also agree with Thomas that the two should be clearly distinguished. It should not happen automatically.


Regards,
Koji

----- Original Message ----- 
From: www-style-request@w3.org [mailto:www-style-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of MasaFuji
Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2011 10:29 AM
To: Thomas Phinney
Cc: www-style list
Subject: Re: [css3-font] Extension of font-stretch property

All.
 
I have an understanding of typographical fear of risks. 
But for CJK fonts, it is very useful and economical tactic to use expanding/condensing method. 
As you know, CJK font has more than 3,000 or 5,000 characters in it. It is impossible to prepare ideal series of font-width in a font family.
 
 
sincerely,
Masahiro Fujishima
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Thomas Phinney 
To: MasaFuji 
Cc: www-style list 
Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2011 12:59 PM
Subject: Re: [css3-font] Extension of font-stretch property

Speaking as a typographer here: 

My concern is that distorted fonts are considered typographically "bad form" and the distorted shapes look lousy. The default should be to NOT do artificially scaled expanding/condensing, with some option to turn that behavior on. 

T
On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 6:30 PM, MasaFuji <masa@fuji.email.ne.jp> wrote:
I'd like to expand the values of font-stretch property as like as font-size property.

Name:            font-stretch
Value:           <absolute-stretch> | <relative-stretch> | <percentage> | inherit
Initial:         normal
Applies to:      all elements
Inherited:       yes
Percentages:     refer to normal element's ratio
Media:           visual
Computed Value;  as specified

Basically, this property indicates the desired font-stretch of glyphs from the font, in other words, the 'font-stretch' property selects a normal, condensed, or expanded face from a font family. It will be happy to Latin font families which have a various type of condensed or expanded font. When a font does not exist for a given width and is scalable in size, it will be useful the font-stretch gives a ratio of scaling in the inline progression direction. For scalable fonts, the font-stretch is a scale factor applied to the EM unit of the font. Values have the following meanings:

<absolute-ratio>
 An <absolute-ratio> keyword refers to an entry in a table of font-stretch ratios computed and kept by the UA. Possible values are:

 [ normal | ultra-condensed | extra-condensed | condensed | semi-condensed | semi-expanded | expanded | extra-expanded | ultra-expanded ]

Absolute keyword values have the following ordering, from narrowest to widest. The following table provides a sample of user agent's guideline for the absolute-size scaling factor. Some user agent may use a scale which increase geometrically.

Value   Description     % of normal
-----------------------------------
1       Ultra-condensed  50
2       Extra-condensed  62.5
3       Condensed        75
4       Semi-condensed   87.5
5       Medium (normal)  100
6       Semi-expanded    112.5
7       Expanded         125
8       Extra-expanded   150
9       Ultra-expanded   200

<relative- ratio>
 A <relative-ratio> keyword is interpreted relative to the table of font-stretch ratios and the font-stretch ratio of the parent element. Possible values are:

 [ wider | narrower ]

For example, if the parent element has a font-stretch ratio of 'normal' a value of 'wider' will make the font-stretch ratio of the current element be 'wider'. If the parent element's ratio is not close to a table entry, the user agent is free to interpolate between table entries or round off to the closest one. The user agent may have to extrapolate table values if the numerical value goes beyond keywords.

<percentage>
 A percentage value specifies a font-stretch ratio to the normal font-stretch ratio. Use of percentage values leads to more robust and cascadable style sheets.

************************
Msahiro Fujishima 





-- 
"Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone,  
 somewhere, may be happy." 
 -H.L. Mencken

Received on Tuesday, 18 January 2011 00:11:40 UTC