copropriete27ruemo...@gmail.com writes: > Unless you insist on using Computer Modern with a word processing > programm (yes, it can be done, at least with the OTF versions of these > fonts), or Times New Roman/Cambria with LaTeX (again possible thanks to > their OTF incarnation) and slaving to force LaTeX choices on Word (or > Word choices on LaTeX, much harder and probably abysmally stupid), your > resulting documents will vary for much larger reasons : floats > handling, table structures, layout structure, different ligatures, > different kernings, etc...
It is not enough to use the same font nor the same font technology (otf). In my previous post I referred to microtypegraphical processes that influence drastically the formal aspect, regardless of the font and the 'glyph level', layout, and other macro typographycal elements. Word processors do not have the TeX line breaking algorithm, for example, nor the horizontal scaling and optical margin alignment properties that were first implemented in pdfTeX (these properties are based on the theories of Herman Zapf on the Gutenberg Bible and were implemented for the first time in an experimental software older than TeX called hz-program). That is why I always recommend that documents made in a word processor are never fully justified: word processors *do not know how to justify* (HTML also does not know how to do it) and the result is usually bad and full of rivers. And there is the fact also that word processors work on postscript points. As I said in the previous message, there are many more factors, but these merely physical (and 'invisible') factors are important. Even software like Adobe InDesign, which implements the TeX algorithm and the microtype properties of Zapf (in a rather sloppy way, since it does so with generic values applied to the character and not to the glyph) does not achieve the precision of TeX; therefore, there may be variations. In any case, I am talking about processes at the lowest level (microtypographical). Generally speaking, word processors cannot imitate TeX. But TeX can imitate word: just disable TeX algorithm (\sloppypar) and use postscript points values. But, except as an experiment, it doesn't make much sense... > BTW: since most of what is typeset nowadays will be used as PDF, HTML > and/or epub (and paper-printed only for archival purposes), it is high > time to revisit typography funamentals (currently based on more than 5 > centuries of use of the *physics* of the "paper" medium) to adapt them > to the physics of computer display and the physiology of human reading > of this new medium (which is *not* the same as "paper" reading). The PDF format has evolved a lot since the 90s, but it is still, in essence, 'printed paper that you can see on screen', device independent. Paradoxically, it was a revolution in printing, and it was of crucial importance in the extinction of the old photomechanical printing methods, which were complex and extremely expensive. As for the relationship of typography with digital media, or new media, that is a long topic. But, in any possible medium, I think that what Stanley Morison (author of Times Roman) said will always prevail in good typography: #+begin_quote Typography is the efficient means to an essentially utilitarian and only accidentally aesthetic end, for the enjoyment of patterns is rarely the reader’s chief aim. Therefore, any disposition of printing material which, whatever the intention, has the effect of coming between the author and the reader is wrong. #+end_quote Best regards, Juan Manuel
