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Scribus => Beginner Talk => Topic started by: gio on February 04, 2014, 02:06:31 PM

Title: Avoid punctuation beginning of the line
Post by: gio on February 04, 2014, 02:06:31 PM
Hi friends !

Just a very simple question :

How to avoid the ; or the : or the ! or the ? (etc) at the beginning of the line ?

Thank you. :-*
Title: Re: Avoid punctuation beginning of the line
Post by: Nermander on February 04, 2014, 04:48:08 PM
At least in Swedish typography puncation characters skall never be preceeded by a space an always be followed by a space. There are some exceptions, like (parathesis), but the general rule is as stated.

A quick googling tells it's the same for english, however other languages might have different rules.
Title: Re: Avoid punctuation beginning of the line
Post by: gio on February 04, 2014, 05:15:35 PM
I know, but I'm french (sorry), and in french there is a space ! :P
Title: Re: Avoid punctuation beginning of the line
Post by: Nermander on February 04, 2014, 09:16:08 PM
Well, have you set the language of the frame/paragraph to French?

As far as I know Scribus does apply different rules for different languages.
Title: Re: Avoid punctuation beginning of the line
Post by: a.l.e on February 07, 2014, 02:58:55 PM
never ever put a space before the punctuation!

in any program.

even if you are french :-)

well, if you're french you might want to insert a "non breaking space" (espace insécable), even if in modern typography it does not look that good (most of all, because most fonts define the non breaking space as a full space and not as half a space as it was meant to be, but also because typography has changed and nowadays texts are readable enough even without such tricks!).

you'll find the non breaking space somewhere in a submenu of the the insert menu...

have fun
a.l.e
Title: Re: Avoid punctuation beginning of the line
Post by: gio on February 18, 2014, 06:39:56 PM
Thank you, actually I found the solution by "Espace insécables" using french language !

But please don't tell me it does not look that good, in french it is unthinkable not to put a space before punctuation ! If a French read a book in French which has no space before punctuation (except of course points or commas), it will be a visual shock, or very disturbing at least.
Title: Re: Avoid punctuation beginning of the line
Post by: a.l.e on February 18, 2014, 08:38:41 PM
bonsoir gio,

well i hope that a french will be even more shocked to see a colon at the beginning of a line! :-)

as i wrote: never put a space. if you know how to put a non breaking space, go for it, if your readers value it. if you can put a non breaking half space, well, then the text will also somehow look good.

and don't get me started with those americans putting multiple spaces after periods... :-)

peace and love
a.l.e
Title: Re: Avoid punctuation beginning of the line
Post by: gio on February 18, 2014, 08:44:48 PM
Quote from: a.l.e on February 18, 2014, 08:38:41 PMas i wrote: never put a space.

French texts always contain a space since...always.
Title: Re: Avoid punctuation beginning of the line
Post by: a.l.e on February 18, 2014, 09:06:05 PM
gio, a non breaking space, not a space.

i repeat my stance: if you don't know how to do it correctly, you'd better not put any space than putting the wrong space. but i know that many prefer the short term satisfaction and take the risk to face a huge big deception when they see those damned punctuations at the beginning of the lines.

by the way, scribus should have a script that automatically inserts the non breaking spaces in the existing text... have a look in the tools menu! (never tested myself, since i don't like a full space in front the punctuation... as you may have noticed :-)

peace and love
a.l.e
Title: Re: Avoid punctuation beginning of the line
Post by: gio on February 19, 2014, 02:20:50 PM
Quote from: a.l.e on February 18, 2014, 09:06:05 PMbut i know that many prefer the short term satisfaction and take the risk to face a huge big deception when they see those damned punctuations at the beginning of the lines.
It is no question of that. In French, it's almost as shocking (maybe more) to have text without spaces before some punctuation as text with punctuation at the beginning of the lines sometimes. But both are very bad anyway. If you don't have the habit like french people, perhaps you may not be able to understand. My question was how to solve a problem, not to tell me that I shouldn't respect the typographic rules, because it's not a solution. If a chinese ask how to get chinese font, you wouldn't reply him that he should better write in english. You'll answer how to do it, or tell him that this is impossible.

But I repeat: I solved my problem by "Espace insécables" using french language.
Title: Re: Avoid punctuation beginning of the line
Post by: Nermander on February 19, 2014, 02:48:36 PM
gio, I think you are missing the point a.l.e is making:
"a space before punctuation" is NOT the same thing as "a non-breaking space before punctuation".
Title: Re: Avoid punctuation beginning of the line
Post by: gio on February 19, 2014, 03:19:06 PM
Okay sorry if I misunderstood.
Title: Re: Avoid punctuation beginning of the line
Post by: a.l.e on February 20, 2014, 01:56:02 PM
tldr; if you don't know how to correctly embellish your text, you'd better restrain from hacking it in. most of all if you're not at the end of the workflow.

bonjour gio,

oui, je ne suis pas français, mais j'ai l'habitude de publier des textes en français. surtout pour le web.

et dans un monde où les resssources sont souvent insuffisantes pour garantir la qualité typographique et où la mise en page devient dynamique (epub, web, pdf, papier, ...), je considère qu'insérer des espaces sécables c'est un manque de respect envers les personnes en amont de la chaîne éditoriale.

personnellement, je ne peux que souscrire ce que dit wikipedia:

"""
En pratique, en particulier sur Internet, cette règle est loin d'être respectée, car l'espace insécable n'est pas accessible en une seule touche sur un clavier d'ordinateur (combinaison de deux ou trois touches selon le système d'exploitation), si elle existe dans le système d'écriture utilisé. De nombreux rédacteurs choisissent donc de ne pas placer d'espace avant ces signes, pour ne pas placer d'espace sécable qui risquerait de placer le signe en tête d'une ligne.
"""

côté pratique: j'ai arrêté de remplacer les espaces sécables dans les textes destinés au web. si les rédacteurs sont trop paresseux pour insérer des espaces insécables, c'est leur problème pas le mien.

mais surtout: ça devrait être la tâche du logiciel de publication / au moteur de visualisation d'espacer correctement le texte et non pas celle du rédacteur. malheureusement, il y a peu de logiciels qui gèrent cette tâche correctement (à ma connaissance uniquement LaTeX / TeX). et c'est d'autant plus dommage, car aujourd'hui les tâches de publication ne sont plus uniquement le soin de quelques professionnels bien formés mais (surtout?) elles sont pratique qoutidienne pour une masse qui fait ce qu'elle peut...

et oui, peut-être ma sensibilité est différente de celle de la plupart des français, car je publie plus de textes en français de ce que je n'en consomme... encore que, en voyant le soin que de nombreux français portent à leur expression écrite (sur le web), je me demande si il y en a encore beaucoup qui remarquent ces finesses :-)

enfin, je suis curieux de savoir si t'as essayé le script livré avec scribus et si -- à ton avis -- il est utile.

ciao
a.l.e