[css3-text] Taiwanese newspaper line-wrapping rules

I'm in Taipei at the moment, and have seen multiple examples, in
newspapers and in signage, of lines beginning with closing quotes,
closing parens, periods, and commas; and of lines ending with
opening quotes/parens. Things that would never be allowed in
Japanese typesetting, and which are forbidden by PRC's 标点符号用法.

I am wondering if this difference arises from Taiwanese typography's
stronger emphasis on the character grid, and the way they set their
punctuation centered within the em-box. I would hope it's not just
sloppy typesetting engines!

The readers here don't seem to find such line breaks odd in
newspapers and magazines, and would write on grid paper this way
(as for homework in school). They explain to me that for them,
a punctuation character is like a word, too. But on non-gridded
paper, they would not write this way. (They're surprised when I
point this out, though.)

I am wondering if the definition of 'line-break: loose' should be
modified so that zh-Hant or zh-TW allows such breaks.

Are there any publishers or designers who would want this kind of
line-breaking?

來自拉脫維亞
、現年三十四
歲的尼爾森斯
在一份聲明中
表示…

vs

來自拉脫維     <-- this line would be justified, b/c fewer characters
亞、現年三十
四 歲的尼爾
森斯 在一份
聲明中表示…

~fantasai

Received on Friday, 24 May 2013 04:19:31 UTC