Re: [css3-text] Taiwanese newspaper line-wrapping rules

2013/5/24 fantasai <fantasai.lists@inkedblade.net>:
> 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 ±êµã·ûºÅÓ÷¨.
>
> 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 didn¡¯t know Taiwanese newspapers do this too. But Newspapers in Hong
Kong definitely do (or at least used to¡ªit¡¯s been quite a while since
I picked up a Chinese newspaper).

I used to think this was just because typography can be sloppier when
it¡¯s newspapers (I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve seen this in books; it¡¯s just
newspapers), probably because in the old days it would have been too
much work to justify all the copy by hand. But in any case I don¡¯t
think it¡¯s sloppy typesetting *engines*, because if you checked out
things published before computerized typesetting became the norm I¡¯m
pretty sure you¡¯d still this sort of typesetting on newspapers.

-- 
cheers,
-ambrose <http://gniw.ca>

Received on Friday, 24 May 2013 06:09:12 UTC