[NTG-context] Hyphenating compound words in MKIV microtypography

2011-05-23 Thread Otso Helenius
Hi,

MKIV seems to have a problem in hyphenating long finnish compound words in MKIV 
(2011.05.18 22:26).
Here is a minimalist example (columns added to exaggerate the problem):

\mainlanguage[fi]
\language[fi]
\starttext
\startcolumns[n=3]
kolmivaihekilowattituntimittari ympäristöliiketoiminta 
epäjärjestelmällisyydellistyttymättömyydellänsäkään 
järjestelmällisentelentelemättömyydellänsäkään 
\stopcolumns
\stoptext

Similarly with en-hyphenation and \input knuth, some of the lines stretch out 
in an ugly fashion.
What am I doing wrong? I don't have these problems in LaTeX.

P.S. The punctuation characters should be partially hung out in a justified 
paragraph (similar to
what microtype package does on LaTeX). Wikipedia says ConTeXt has interfaces 
for handling
microtypography but they don't seem as apparent and as easy as using microtype 
on LaTeX.

The wiki article Protrusion#MkIV presents \definefontfeature but I find it 
counterintuitive that one has to use

\definefontfeature[default][default][protrusion=quality,expansion=quality]
\setupalign[hz,hanging]

to enable the features. It is unclear if these lines switch the features on 
globally for all loaded fonts
(for example ttf/otf ones defined with \starttypescript). IMHO these features 
should be enabled by default
because they produce better typographic quality by default (which should be the 
preference), and could be
switched off anyway if wanted. The less setup lines one has to add before 
\starttext to get high quality
results the better.



Otso Helenius
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Re: [NTG-context] Hyphenating compound words in MKIV microtypography

2011-05-23 Thread Hans Hagen

On 23-5-2011 2:07, Otso Helenius wrote:

Hi,

MKIV seems to have a problem in hyphenating long finnish compound words in MKIV 
(2011.05.18 22:26).
Here is a minimalist example (columns added to exaggerate the problem):

\mainlanguage[fi]
\language[fi]
\starttext
\startcolumns[n=3]
kolmivaihekilowattituntimittari ympäristöliiketoiminta 
epäjärjestelmällisyydellistyttymättömyydellänsäkään 
järjestelmällisentelentelemättömyydellänsäkään
\stopcolumns
\stoptext

Similarly with en-hyphenation and \input knuth, some of the lines stretch out 
in an ugly fashion.
What am I doing wrong? I don't have these problems in LaTeX.


it all depends on the defaults for tolerance and emergencystretch ... 
they determine where tex will break


in such an extreme case (narrow columns and long words) I'd just use

\setupalign[flushleft]



P.S. The punctuation characters should be partially hung out in a justified 
paragraph (similar to
what microtype package does on LaTeX). Wikipedia says ConTeXt has interfaces 
for handling
microtypography but they don't seem as apparent and as easy as using microtype 
on LaTeX.


fwiw: one has rather detailed control over what hangs and how much it 
hangs or protrudes (using character classes); we predefine a few cases 
in font-ext.lua but more can be defined if needed (not that I've noticed 
that much demand)


in the case of hz/protrusion easycan also easily become ugly


The wiki article Protrusion#MkIV presents \definefontfeature but I find it 
counterintuitive that one has to use

\definefontfeature[default][default][protrusion=quality,expansion=quality]
\setupalign[hz,hanging]


sure, (1) it's a font related feature that should be used with care and 
(2) you want to be able to turn it on and off



to enable the features. It is unclear if these lines switch the features on 
globally for all loaded fonts
(for example ttf/otf ones defined with \starttypescript). IMHO these features 
should be enabled by default
because they produce better typographic quality by default (which should be the 
preference), and could be
switched off anyway if wanted. The less setup lines one has to add before 
\starttext to get high quality
results the better.


it produces larger files, take more runtime and in most cases does not 
look better at all; for instance one can argue that protrusion gives 
more width but at the same time it introduces the boundary condition 
that some characters have to hang; or take hz (expansion) ... when 
applied so much that it gets visible, it will also lead to similar 
shapes in successive lines to look different


so, just enabling these features assuming that the output looks better 
is debatable (sometimes adding or removing a word is more effective)


Hans

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  Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
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 | www.pragma-pod.nl
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