Ellipsis Typography
Frizlab opened this issue · 19 comments
It was my understanding that ellipsis should have a space after them in English. I am mistaken?
E.g.
“What lay ahead of her… would be no easier, certainly, and might well be harder.”
instead of
“What lay ahead of her…would be no easier, certainly, and might well be harder.”
In short, no, there shouldn't be a space; rather, some space before and after. LaTeX takes care of the spacing. Thanks for asking!
In short, no, there shouldn't be a space; rather, some space before and after. LaTeX takes care of the spacing. Thanks for asking!
Maybe LaTeX does, but EPUB doesn’t. And the current converter doesn’t insert any kind of space.
Also, I don’t know anything about the space before (sonds like a kerning issue TBH), but it definitely shouldn’t be as big as the space after. Ellipsis sticks to the previous word, just like a period, a comma, a (semi)colon or a question/exclamation mark.
Also, I don’t know anything about the space before (sonds like a kerning issue TBH), but it definitely shouldn’t be as big as the space after. Ellipsis sticks to the previous word, just like a period, a comma, a (semi)colon or a question/exclamation mark.
I follow the Chicago Manual of Style, whose advice is reproduced here: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Punctuation/faq0133.html
I follow the Chicago Manual of Style, whose advice is reproduced here: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Punctuation/faq0133.html
Damn those examples look weird... That’s why I cherry-pick style guidelines.
But ok, I guess I’ll just have to search and replace in my own copy so that it looks normal.
If the problem only effects the ebook, we could perform the search and replace in the ebook script. On the other hand, if LaTeX handles the spacing around the ellipsis, it would not hurt to apply the rules directly to the source files. If we agree on a set of rules, I am happy to apply them in the coding.
So, who would like to propose a rule set for spacing around ellipsis in the ebook? (which are html internally)
I propose adding a space after it, unless it’s the beginning of a sentence, in which case add a space before.
So rules like
foo… bar
foo. …Bar
How about opening and closing "?
"… foo…" according to above rules.
I think I would prefer
"…foo…"
How about end of sentence and before comma?
I suggest
foo…!
foo…,
etc
Feel free to correct me and come up with more rules ;-)
Stick to the alphanumeric character on the left if any, otherwise on the right?
foo…,
Personally, I agree with this: an ellipsis makes a comma redundant.
foo…!
Well, we could copy this elegant punctuation rule from Russian:
- foo?..
- foo!..
But I doubt many people would agree with me on this x)
Hi @rrthomas: would it harm to perform such replacement rules directly on the LaTeX files? If not, I would prefer using the check-chapter script to enforce it centrally instead of only in (and at each run of) the ebook creation scripts.
@entorb I'd rather not change the LaTeX files as that will change the spacing LaTeX produces. As you probably know, it's rather like HTML: any number of spaces equals one space in its effect, so changing between 0 and 1 space changes the result (usually…of course nothing in TeX-world is ever quite that simple).
Please review and commend the PR.
Bye the way, should we also harmonize the spaces around the em dash "—" in the ebook version?
Do you have proposals for it?
@entorb, I'm happy with the PR; feel free to merge it.
Harmonizing space around em dash is also a good idea.
I should say: I think we've looked at these matters before, so the LaTeX should be correct by now, but I certainly don't rule out errors in particular cases. I don't know whether any of the patterns in your fix functions actually detect errors in the LaTeX, that is, cases that should not be present in the LaTeX sources and which therefore should not show up in the ePUB conversion?
at @natewind , @Frizlab here you can check the changes in the pre-release version
https://github.com/rrthomas/hpmor/releases/tag/WorkInProgress
at @natewind , @Frizlab here you can check the changes in the pre-release version
https://github.com/rrthomas/hpmor/releases/tag/WorkInProgress
Thanks!
LGtM in the epub. Thanks!
@entorb, would you like to make a release? I'm not sure if you've done it before, so get in touch if you need help.
ok, done via the github release action I composed some time ago ;-)
https://github.com/rrthomas/hpmor/releases/tag/v1.2.9
Ah yes, great!