Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!eecae!netnews.upenn.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!gaynor From: gaynor@athos.rutgers.edu (Silver) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: UNIX needs a real text editor Message-ID: Date: 12 Mar 89 22:20:25 GMT References: <222@imspw6.UUCP> <252@torch.UUCP> <9837@smoke.BRL.MIL> <1089@frog.UUCP> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 34 john@frog.UUCP writes: > Ah, but wimps who would say "wishywig" with a straight face would never be > content with monopitch, monofont, ragged-edge printed documents, no matter > how unimportant the actual text is... :-) This brings to mind several readability issues which it won't hurt to air again. In general, - Text written in ALL UPPER-CASE (of the same font as the surrounding text) is *much* harder to physically read. The reason for this is that the upper-case characters in a given font are basically the same size, and, in most fonts, don't extend below the base line at all (except Q on occasion). (Mixed-font upper case is usually ok, e.g., LaTeX's \sc declaration.) - Unless the space between characters and words can be adjusted uniformly, text that is both left- and RIGHT-JUSTIFIED is difficult to read. The non-uniform gaps tend to catch the eye and keep it there. Much better to leave the right edge ragged. - DOUBLE-SPACED text is slightly more difficult to read than text less-heavily spaced. Text too closely spaced can also be difficult. (If you're using LaTeX, try a stretch of 1.2 - 1.3 with the default skip, and see if you like that better.) - LONG AND SHORT LINES (outside of something like [20, 80]) are more difficult to read. For the real long lines, the eye has trouble spotting the beginning of the next line. For read short lines, the eye has to shift to the beginning of the next line too often. I'm told that 50 - 60 characters is optimum. (You can see that I choose to trade optimal line length for better usage of screen acreage). Comments? Additions? Regards, [Ag] gaynor@rutgers.edu "vi's a dog!"