In mid January Peter helped me understand what's going on. Please have a look at his explanation [1]. Maybe that makes it clearer. The margin properties are never used directly in the layout engine (I think and hope). I'm always working from *-indent and space-*. I think it's obvious enough from 5.3.2 that *-indent and margin are meant to be corresponding, at least through the rules established therein.
Actually, I think 5.1.2 is the section I should have looked at before Peter pointed out my mistake. About corresponding properties it says "The simplest example of such properties...", so in my view 5.3.2 describes a complex relationship and so my calling these properties corresponding was really correct. And the rules in 5.3.2 talk about corresponding ("margin-corresponding"), and to what can they correspond to if not start-indent and end-indent or space-before and space-after depending on the writing mode? If you think the current interpretation is wrong, please present your theory. However, the more I think about this, and the more I'm explaining, the more I can say that I'm sure that the interpretation is correct. [1] http://nagoya.apache.org/eyebrowse/[EMAIL PROTECTED]&msgId=2078791 On 15.02.2005 18:27:38 Glen Mazza wrote: > But if start-indent and margin-left are not > Corresponding Properties, then the inheritance of > 50pt. you gave in your example would not occur. > > IMO, if start-indent and margin-left were actually > intended to be Corresponding Properties, the former > would have been named margin-start. Also, > margin-before and margin-after (or before-indent and > after-indent) corresponding properties would also have > been created. The description of Corresponding > Properties, 2nd para of 5.1.2, is unfortunately vague > about which properties are actually CP's. Jeremias Maerki