RE: 7.16.2 "letter-spacing"

At 09:55 19/03/2003 -0600, Paul Grosso wrote:

>Sorry I wasn't clearer.

No problem Paul.
    I'll keep asking till I understand it :-)


>letter-spacing affects all fo:characters (and leaders
>and page-numbers).

'All' other than the one on which it is explictly specified?

>   Remember that all FOs always have a
>value for all properties, either because the property
>in question is explicitly specified on that FO or because
>it has an inherited or defaulted value.

I'm happy with that.


>More below.
>
>At 15:37 2003 03 19 +0000, David.Pawson@rnib.org.uk wrote:
> >Paul said:
> >> The discussion at
> >> http://www.w3.org/TR/xsl/slice7.html#letter-spacing
> >> explains how letter-spacing affects the space-start and
> >> space-end traits of the fo:character.
> >>
> >> What the spec doesn't make clear in section 7.16.2  is that letter-spacing
> >applies
> >> only to the fo:character, fo:leader, and fo:page-number FOs
> >> (as you discover if you search through the various FO descriptions
> >> for applicable properties).
> >
> >I'm nearly happy with that Paul, but *which* character(s) is my question.
> >I'm using
> ><fo:character../><fo:character../><fo:character../>
>
>All characters.  Every fo:character has some value for letter-spacing.

OK, but if inheritance is 'down' the hierarchy, in the example given,
this is the current one plus none?




> > What I'm trying to do is use a negative
> >value to get a character to appear more to the start direction
> >than it normally would, rather than using a combining diaresis,
> >which works nicely to produce, say a u umlaut.
>
>Then you don't want letter-spacing, you want to set the space-start
>of that character to a negative value.

OK, I'm on home territory :-) I.e. I got it wrong.

>   While letter-spacing might
>work in that it affects the fo:character's space-start, space-start
>is much more likely to be implemented than letter-spacing, so you
>are making your life unnecessarily difficult.

Heck I'm used to that Paul!!
    I must admit, the idea of using negative values is not
    home ground for me!


> >    <fo:block font-family="ArialUnicodeMS">
> > <fo:inline>Some more standard inline text to test a different way.
> >&#x20;<fo:character character="A" letter-spacing="-0.8 * 1em" />
> ><fo:character character="&#x02DA;"
> >
> >vertical-align="50%"/> </fo:inline></fo:block>
>
>In that case, it only affects the middle fo:character since
>the other two have the default value of letter-spacing (which
>is zero).  And how it affects that middle letter is by changing
>its start-space as described in the spec.

I'd request then that the rec be clarified?
   Since its spaces we are talking about, and for any fo:character,
these occur either side of the char in question, I found it
quite elusive..... (and AH and XEP implement it differently)
  so perhaps it could be more clearly explained?

My 'trial and error' was tending to show
that it impacted the space following the actual char on which
it was specified, but perhaps I'm the odd one in deducing that.


Thanks for your time Paul.

regards DaveP

Received on Wednesday, 19 March 2003 14:03:18 UTC