Re: Hanging Punctuation Questions

On 03/05/2016 03:20 PM, John Hudson wrote:
> Dear David,
>
> Some general comments on hanging punctuation:
>
> The practice of hanging punctuation is so neglected, that a lot of people — including experienced digital typographers — do
> not favour it, or wish it to be implemented in a discreet way that involves a kind of compromise: punctuation extending a
> little into the margins, but not fully hanging. That kind of 'optical' alignment of margins is best accomplished, though, if
> it also takes into account letter shape (Adobe's optical margins algorithm attempts this, fairly well for European scripts and
> disastrously for many others). I consider this something different from hanging punctuation in the traditional sense, which is
> a practice in metal typography based, in turn, on manuscript models.

Thanks, John, for the information. :) Just wanted to point out, that the
'end' and 'force-end' values of 'hanging-punctuation' at this level are
designed primarily for CJK typography, so the considerations are a bit
different--while the end result is still about a strong right edge,
there's more consideration to the character grid and thus optical kerning
isn't a good solution.

Handling Western requirements is definitely something we would like to add,
so definitely your comments are something to take into consideration. I've
been thinking we should use a different set of keywords for optical alignment,
though, so as not to mix up the behaviors.

~fantasai