Showing posts with label typesetting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label typesetting. Show all posts
Hyphens & Dashes
Great resource on hyphens and dashes. I can't think of anything more but who knows. Suggestions are welcome :-)
Kerning play
Found this on the web and enjoyed a lot:
http://type.method.ac/#
It was really fun, to see how you compare your kerning abilities with the professionals. Well I presume the actual comparison is done against the results of a kerning algorithm ... At least this is what I would do.
If I think a little I'll say that I am not that happy to be compared and loose to an algorithm but hey ... it happened to other much bigger than me :)
http://type.method.ac/#
It was really fun, to see how you compare your kerning abilities with the professionals. Well I presume the actual comparison is done against the results of a kerning algorithm ... At least this is what I would do.
If I think a little I'll say that I am not that happy to be compared and loose to an algorithm but hey ... it happened to other much bigger than me :)
Apple textbooks and EPUB 3 vs. EPUB 2
It took some time to get back with a new post. May be the fact that nothing really interesting happens should be considered a reason.
Well .. actually things happen but are any of those things really revolutionary?
The last few days I was bombarded with information about the Apple textbook initiative. This really looks revolutionary but it is not. It is just a company that has enough power to try to disrupt what everybody thinks that it has to be changed. On the other hand they are trying to much to secure the revenue from this. This is too visible to alow the program to be revolutionary. They are just flexing some muscle.
On the other hand I can't say I don't appreciate the effort. At least they do something. This is not somethig to be said about anything in the commercial or open source / public area.
To be fair I did not even bothered to look for details about the format. I suppose they decided to do what it takes to have something viable and this is what they should. If you care too much about the standards nothing new will get in front. The format is just a matter of strategy ... Tim Cook is good at executing things and I'm sure it has the strategy. Considering the fact that they havea product on the market they definitely have also a vision .... whether this vision is correctly targeted with the strategy and aligned with the market capacity to absorb something new is another thing to be seen.
The apple textbooks offer text wrap around objects, multimedia content and .. and actually that's all we can say about them.
If we look at the features that EPUB 3 bring on, I don't see a good reason for them to depart too much from the standard:
Apple had anything at hand in the standard. May be they just played with the implementation. This remains to be seen.
Wish you all the best.
Well .. actually things happen but are any of those things really revolutionary?
The last few days I was bombarded with information about the Apple textbook initiative. This really looks revolutionary but it is not. It is just a company that has enough power to try to disrupt what everybody thinks that it has to be changed. On the other hand they are trying to much to secure the revenue from this. This is too visible to alow the program to be revolutionary. They are just flexing some muscle.
On the other hand I can't say I don't appreciate the effort. At least they do something. This is not somethig to be said about anything in the commercial or open source / public area.
To be fair I did not even bothered to look for details about the format. I suppose they decided to do what it takes to have something viable and this is what they should. If you care too much about the standards nothing new will get in front. The format is just a matter of strategy ... Tim Cook is good at executing things and I'm sure it has the strategy. Considering the fact that they havea product on the market they definitely have also a vision .... whether this vision is correctly targeted with the strategy and aligned with the market capacity to absorb something new is another thing to be seen.
The apple textbooks offer text wrap around objects, multimedia content and .. and actually that's all we can say about them.
If we look at the features that EPUB 3 bring on, I don't see a good reason for them to depart too much from the standard:
| Feature | EPUB 2 | EPUB 3 | Functionality |
|---|---|---|---|
| CSS3 support | No | Yes |
Better control over line break, hyphenation etc.
|
| Multiple style sheets | No | Yes |
Supports the ability to include multiple style sheets allowing for improved layout control
|
| Embedded fonts | No | Yes |
Allow fonts to be delivered along with the EPUB file.
|
| SVG support | No | Yes | Bring on the vector graphic functionality to EPUB area. It was strange not to have something like that in a pure electronic publication. |
| epub: type | No | Yes |
Support for semantic meaning
|
| epub: trigger | No | Yes | Support for creation of user interfaces for controlling multimedia objects. |
| XHTML 5 support | No | Yes | Inherits most of the definitions of semantics, structure and processing behaviours from HTML5 |
| MathML | No | Yes |
Direct embedding of MathML supported ... enables rendering of mathematics content as text instead of images
|
| Scripting | No | Yes | Support for scripted content, ie interactivity, using JavaScript language |
| Audio&Video | No | Yes | Inherits support for HTML5 rich media elements |
Apple had anything at hand in the standard. May be they just played with the implementation. This remains to be seen.
Wish you all the best.
eBook design
At least it happened. Somebody tells the truth: http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/01/ebook-design-conversion-quality.html
The best thing that can happen in the ebook world is to begin working on the design side of the page. It is really strange the fact that so many good publishers that have good looking books in print avoid doing the same thing on the electronic side.
Wake up please.
Just converting to EPUB is not enough. You have to put something else in that file to make it a readable book. A page means typesetting, spaces and proportions. If you put also some video and sound you have to be more than a simple designer ... better be a director.
Enjoy reading the article.
The best thing that can happen in the ebook world is to begin working on the design side of the page. It is really strange the fact that so many good publishers that have good looking books in print avoid doing the same thing on the electronic side.
Wake up please.
Just converting to EPUB is not enough. You have to put something else in that file to make it a readable book. A page means typesetting, spaces and proportions. If you put also some video and sound you have to be more than a simple designer ... better be a director.
Enjoy reading the article.
Publishing evolution
Last week I've seen how Wired looks on iPad (http://tv.adobe.com/watch/xd-inspire/introducing-wired-on-ipad/). Or should I say I've seen:
- how a magazine should look in digital form
- how digital content had to be displayed for years
- how a typesetter has to work to get things done for a digital device
... and the list can be much larger.
It looks nice, It looks as we should expect it to look. And this has to be the beginning.
I have to add that this has been created using InDesign and most probably is in fact just a heavy enriched PDF file. Nice work.
Enjoy the present :-)
- how a magazine should look in digital form
- how digital content had to be displayed for years
- how a typesetter has to work to get things done for a digital device
... and the list can be much larger.
It looks nice, It looks as we should expect it to look. And this has to be the beginning.
I have to add that this has been created using InDesign and most probably is in fact just a heavy enriched PDF file. Nice work.
Enjoy the present :-)
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