Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: spacing after punctuation

Bruce Byfield wrote:

> I know of several publishers who work directly from ODF files. With a 
> couple
> of exceptions, Writer has most of the tools needed for a thoroughly
> professional design job, allegedly because when the original code was being
> written in the days of Star Division, they were told they would have to use
> what they wrote for documentation.

> The trick is to know what options to use, and which to ignore (topics that, 
> if
> you forgive the shameless plug, I am currently grappling with the book I am
> writing with Jean Hollis Weber).

> For now, I'll just say that Writer is not a word processor so much as an
> intermediate desktop publishing program. You can actually substitute it 
> very
> successfully for proprietary tools like FrameMaker.

No doubt, many publishers are simply publishing the files sent to them that 
are created by word processors. And, sadly, the results are often quite 
apparent. I'm reading more and more books that are set without true small 
caps or old style numbering. Writers and publishers simply accept the faux 
small caps generated by their word processors by shrinking regular upper 
case letters complete with the corresponding weakening of the lines that 
come from the shrinking. Now, perhaps these are the options that you and 
Weber would recommend avoiding. (I look forward to hearing more about your 
book.)

However, for me at least, LO's biggest limitation that disqualifies it for 
final publishable work is its justification method. It's line-by-line 
justification results in too many word space variations from line to line 
and too many hyphenated lines. As an experiment, just prepare the same 
document using LO and LaTeX (with the Microtype package). The difference in 
the justified lines will be quite obvious.

To me, LO Writer is a business class word processor, and perhaps the best 
there is, but until it finds a more complete justification method, I don't 
think I qualifies for creating publishable output.

Virgil 


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