Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!sdd.hp.com!caen!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!ira.uka.de!fauern!NewsServ!!schoett From: schoett@informatik.tu-muenchen.de (Oliver Schoett) Newsgroups: comp.text.tex Subject: Re: Indentation of paragraphs versus space between paragraphs Message-ID: Date: 28 Mar 91 15:22:17 GMT References: <1991Mar14.170116.152@otago.ac.nz> <1991Mar14.163259.17221@csrd.uiuc.edu> <1991Mar14.194124.18866@rice.edu> Sender: news@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE Organization: Inst. fuer Informatik, Technische Univ. Muenchen, Germany Lines: 32 In-Reply-To: dorai@tone.rice.edu's message of 14 Mar 91 19: 41:24 GMT In article <1991Mar14.194124.18866@rice.edu> dorai@tone.rice.edu (Dorai Sitaram) writes: > [...] most of the books (novels) I've seen that were printed in a > certain country [famous for its books!] appear to favor a > do-nothing paragraph separating style, i.e., neither indentation > nor vertical space. > Thus, the only aid to recognizing a new paragraph is that the > trailing line of the previous paragraph doesn't quite make it to > the right margin. (Ergo, this style will not work for raggedright > text, hence I can't demonstrate it in this article.) The just-start-a-new-line style for paragraph breaks seems to become increasingly common in Germany too, especially in word processing (presumably because those pesky automatic paragraph indentations and vertical spacings don't get in the way when you don't want them), but also in some books. I find this style rotten and am tempted to throw material typeset like this right into the wastebasket. The reason is that I can't read the stuff: my technique for speedy reading depends crucially on scanning paragraph beginnings, for which I need a fast way to locate paragraphs (especially the top left corner). There is something to be said for conservatism in typography; a lot of typographical `dogma' has to do with legibility. Oliver Schoett Institut f. Informatik, Technische Univ. M"unchen Postfach 20 24 20, 8000 M"unchen 2, Germany schoett@informatik.tu-muenchen.de phone +49 89 2105-2390 fax -8207