Sampling: What Nyquist Didn't Say, and What to Do About It

Too often, this is done for "artistic effect" -- without good reason. It's as if the person designing the publication just "discovered" some feature and is now playing with it (the same holds true of abusing typefaces, etc.)

OTOH, there are times when it can be very advantageous to flow text around a picture -- if the alternative is

E.g., in a newsletter I put together for a local library, I was describing a gizmo gifted to the library that would allow them to hang/display works of art from local artists. The "hanger" onto which individual items are hung is insignificant. But, to describe how the "system" worked, it was necessary to include a photo of it. I included it

For an example of this, see the center of page 4 at

For an example of the advantage of including photos at high resolution, zoom in on the individual pictures of the artworks on page 4 -- you can even see the texture of the "stucco" walls!

(for an example of NOT using high resolution imiages, repeat the exercise for the book covers on page 5!)

Note that the way you layout a technical publication differs from the way you layout something like this newsletter. Different audiences, different emotional connections (in this case, trying to create interest *in* the library)

Things are much better with modern DTP tools. In years past, to pad a line to full length, you had to insert *whole* spaces. For fixed width fonts (e.g., courier), this can be "like fingernails scraping on a chalkboard".

Note that most tools will also play games balancing column lengths (if you so choose). Some will even use *variable* line SPACING to achieve this!

On a sunny day (Tue, 21 Dec 2010 13:21:46 -0700) it happened D Yuniskis wrote in :

Yes, but this is done correctly, it even emphasises the word 'hangers'.

My compliments for this newsletter, best I have seen in a very long time if not ever.

xpdf goes to 400%, I can zoom some more by changing to a lower X resolution :-) Yes I see the texture.

Yes I see the jpeg artefacts in Mark Twain's

Yes, when I ever have the time I may try to find a good DTP program for Linux that actually installs (tried some in the past without much luck). At very old age, if I get that far, when all I can do is press a key, maybe I should write a book. Although these days it is probably 'twitter'. :-)

On a sunny day (Tue, 21 Dec 2010 13:50:30 -0700) it happened D Yuniskis wrote in :

# wget

--21:44:41--

Yea, but I burned my XP disk, as it wasted too much time. So far Linux has always helped me out, did not want to put too much time into that DTP stuff back then, I write my web pages in html with a text editor.

Yes, I frown on that too, but the younger generation seems to use it a lot.

not ever.

This is what I was "competing" with:

Before:

And "since":

If you actually *read* them (with an eye towards spelling, punctuation, grammar and content), you'll see big "differences".

It seemed "appropriate" to give the reader/viewer that ability wrt the photos. E.g., you can almost read the label on the "hanger"! I had argued that making the on-line version of the newsletter MORE APPEALING than the "print" version could help migrate people away from the print version (which would cut costs). This is one of the things that gave the "reader" more value in this electronic form than its print counterpart.

I didn't hunt down the individual titles and take photos of their covers. Instead, I lifted the images from the libraries on-line catalogue. There was enough detail to *suggest* the title of each book (note they are explicitly listed in the article) which I thought was enough for that "application". (I assembled the document remotely --- while I was attending to some family problems "back east" -- so I didn't have access to any of these physical items)

While I am an advocate of FOSS (though don't run Linux), I am not a zealot. I *gladly* avail myself of the tools that are available under (e.g.) Windows. Especially if they make my life easier or my "product" better!

That forces you to look *past* a photo for the next bit of text. I don't "interrupt" the reader unless the interruption is "worthwhile". I.e., a reader should be able to keep reading and ignore photos, illustrations, tables, etc. if they aren't "significant enough".

For example, I like to try to arrange photos/tables/etc. at the top or bottom of a column so they user can conveniently ignore them. OTOH, doing this rigidly, results in a boring (visually) presentation.

In the newsletter I mentioned (elsewhere), for example, I took liberties with which "articles" were on each page. And, did some significant editing to those articles to cause images to fall where I wanted them.

When I do technical presentations, I try to silently impose a structure on each page so the reader knowws where to look for things. E.g., if I have "screenshots" in the document, then I might opt to "always" put them in the same relative position on a page -- so the user's "muscle memory" directs him to the text or image, as appropriate (without having to "hunt")

I can see the point of that - by reducing the vertical line spacing, you are reducing the area of the large space and thus its visual effect. I am not sure I like it, however - I thing the line spacing change is distracting and the space is still too big.

Sometimes there is nothing that can be done to make the typesetting look good. The answer in a case like this is to slightly re-write the text until you get a good fit - not to massage the spacing to give a slightly less bad fit.

The tool in question (FrameMaker) seems to do a better job than word processors, and does a reasonable job of the hyphenation, but it has a lot to learn from TeX. The typesetter (person rather than program) has missed a few points too - though again, it is typeset far better than most publications these days, and it looks very nice.

The basic physiological issue here is the time taken to read the line - if there is too much in it, then you have "forgotten" where the line started by the time you want to move to the next line, even if you can still "see" the start of the line.

So both the subtended angle (which is obviously dependent on the reading distance) and the line's contents matter.

It also depends somewhat on the type of text. If there are a lot of long and technical words, it's important that the line is long enough that these are not often broken. But if the text is slow to read, or boring, lines should be short or you will again lose track of the line starts.

Ragged right is certainly better than rampant hyphenation or wildly varying spacing to justify the text. Good typesetters for short-line publications like newspapers will work with the editors to change text to fit, so that it can be readable /and/ pretty.

There is also a lot more "science" to typesetting than most people think. Even if you don't want to use TeX or its friends, I'd thoroughly recommend reading the TeXbook to see how Knuth thinks about typesetting.

I know the feeling. When you've used TeX or LaTeX, and especially if you've read the books explaining the background, it is hard not to think about it. I can usually spot a (La)TeX'ed document immediately - there is just far more attention to the small details than you get with other programs. It is often easy to see when someone has used a professional program like Frame Maker rather than an amateurish word processor, but the difference is not as great unless it is done by a very skilled typesetter. I am often asked to proof-read documents at work - it is sometimes hard to concentrate on the relevant issues rather than glaring double-space errors or font issues.

And then along came HTML and they could put all that mess on top of a nice busy background image!

With (La)TeX, the defaults pretty much always produce a good-looking document. And, if you're not happy with the results, you can always tweak things to make it worse. [At least that's usually what happens when I decide I want to start changing things.]

On a sunny day (Tue, 21 Dec 2010 13:57:09 -0700) it happened D Yuniskis wrote in :

Yes, I should perhaps just have provided a link to the big pictures, and put the text next to it. Something to consider for the next project (that is already progressing in a nice way): ftp://panteltje.com/pub/sc_pic/xscpc.gif Uses a photo multiplier tube and scintillation crystal: ftp://panteltje.com/pub/PMT/PMT_1_img_2435.jpg Once the project is finished, I will use your suggestions to make that web page. Then there is already the next project materialising.. but that is a VERY cold project, super conducting cold actually.

Yes, on my website I sort of start from the point of view that if somebody is REALLY interested they will need all data they can get. So I try to provide the essential info. And I assume some real knowledge how to use it. It is not a training or electronics education, something like that. Although I just got a letter from the chamber of commerce that I was registered as business training centre, can you imagine. Wonder hat gave them that idea :-)

For HTML, I'd put a reduced resolution/size image "in-line" with the associated text. And, a link *on* the image so you could "click for bigger picture".

While I despise PDF's, they are an effective way of controlling content *and* presentation.

Wow, that looks fantastic! I admire a piece of good typesetting, at least as far as my eye can see, and this close to the top of my scale.

BFM?

My fault cutting and pasting.

(Fall 200*8* precedes Spring 2009 :> While I am an advocate of FOSS (though don't run Linux), I am