Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!ubc-cs!sol.UVic.CA!sirius!hedstrom From: hedstrom@sirius.UVic.CA (Brad Hedstrom) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps Subject: Re: I want an h-bar!!! Message-ID: Date: 12 Dec 90 10:02:03 GMT References: <1990Dec10.174201.5648@ariel.unm.edu> <1990Dec10.221136.6559@agate.berkeley.edu> <1990Dec11.214636.3441@midway.uchicago.edu> Sender: news@sol.UVic.CA Distribution: comp.sys.mac.apps Organization: University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada Lines: 72 In-Reply-To: xdab@ellis.uchicago.edu's message of 11 Dec 90 21:46:36 GMT Nntp-Posting-Host: pollux.uvic.ca In article <1990Dec11.214636.3441@midway.uchicago.edu> xdab@ellis.uchicago.edu (David Baird) writes: > Why blast Microsoft when they built into their program, from at least > version 3.00x days, a way to control line spacing and character positon? I'm not "blasting" that feature, although WriteNow has always had character position control. It's the way that MS handles it in 4.0; which differs from 3.0. It's difficult to explain and is a case where a picture is worth 1k words. But here goes. Let's say you have 14 pt line spacing, some 12 pt text, and you wish to past in a small PICT in line. We'll assume that this PICT should be partially below the baseline, which is often the case with MathType and Expressionalist. base line 1 ----------------------------------------------------- pasted some text going happily along PICT rest of line base line 2 ----------------------------------------------------- base line 3 ----------------------------------------------------- Now you want to subscript the pasted PICT so the 'pasted' is on the baseline. As you can see from my hi-res graphics, the line spacing between lines 1 and 2 is greater than that between 2 and 3. This is due to the presence of the pasted PICT. Now when we subscript the PICT base line 1 ----------------------------------------------------- some text going happily along pasted rest of line base line 2 -----------------------------------PICT-------------- base line 3 ----------------------------------------------------- the line spacing is still greater between 1 & 2 than 2 & 3. This does not make sense! The top of the PICT frame has been lowered and does not now require the extra space. When the PICT is subscripted, Word vertically extends the PICT frame so that it takes more vertical space than necessary. This only happens in 4.0 and not 3.0. Try it! So the workaround is to set the line spacing as a negative number. This causes some undesirable side effects. >>Basically they said "We're so damn big, we don't give a shit!" Okay, >>it's not a quote but that was certainly how it ended. > Are you going to take on Apple/Claris for marketing an academic > word processor that did not provide for any kind of footnoting. Even > in MacWrite II the program designers did not provide for a way to > easily format the appearance of footnotes. At least they would probably admit that it does not have footnoting. > I'm sorry, but I have no tolerance for Microsoft bashing when the > other programs out there have less features than Word, and when people > don't want to learn Word to use the features it has to work around ?????????????????????????????????????????????? > the shortcomings of the program. [Now if only Word would give me ??????????????????????????????? > spacing control in increments of 1/1,000 of an M space.] I'm just saying that it would be nice for MS to acknowledge that these problems. They basically told my that Word was perfect (not WordPerfect ;-)) and not to bother them anymore. It would be nice if they even admitted changing the PICT handling between v3 and v4! _____________________________________________________________________________ Brad Hedstrom, University of Victoria, ECE Dept. Internet: hedstrom@sirius.uvic.ca UUCP: ...!{uw-beaver,ubc-vision}!uvicctr!hedstrom