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authorNorbert Preining <norbert@preining.info>2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900
committerNorbert Preining <norbert@preining.info>2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900
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+%%% ====================================================================
+%%% @LaTeX3-article{ LaTeX3-LTX3-002d,
+%%% filename = "l3d002d.tex",
+%%% archived = "ctan:/tex-archive/info/ltx3pub/",
+%%% related-files = "part of l3d002.tex",
+%%% author = "David Rhead",
+%%% doc-group = "Project core team",
+%%% title = "Some ideas for improving {\LaTeX}\\ General",
+%%% version = "1.1",
+%%% date = "18-Mar-1993",
+%%% time = "20:19:36 GMT",
+%%% status = "public, official",
+%%% abstract = "Ideas and suggestions from David Rhead for
+%%% improving various areas in LaTeX",
+%%% note = "prepared for the workshop at Dedham 91",
+%%% keywords = "",
+%%% project-address = "LaTeX3 Project \\
+%%% c/o Dr. Chris Rowley \\
+%%% The Open University \\
+%%% Parsifal College \\
+%%% Finchley Road \\
+%%% London NW3 7BG, England, UK",
+%%% project-tel = "+44 171 794 0575",
+%%% project-FAX = "+44 171 433 6196",
+%%% project-email = "LTX3-Mgr@SHSU.edu",
+%%% copyright = "Copyright (C) 1993 LaTeX3 Project
+%%% All rights reserved.
+%%%
+%%% Permission is granted to make and distribute
+%%% verbatim copies of this publication or of
+%%% coherent parts from this publication provided
+%%% this copyright notice and this permission
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+%%%
+%%% No other permissions to copy or distribute this
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+%%% meaning.",
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+%%% ftp.tex.ac.uk
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+%%% ftp.shsu.edu
+%%% in the directory /tex-archive/info/ltx3pub.
+%%%
+%%% The file ltx3pub.bib in that directory gives
+%%% full bibliographical information including
+%%% abstracts in BibTeX format. A brief history
+%%% of the project and a description of its aims
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+%%%
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+%%% checksum = "53711 471 3078 21211",
+%%% docstring = "The checksum field above contains a CRC-16
+%%% checksum as the first value, followed by the
+%%% equivalent of the standard UNIX wc (word
+%%% count) utility output of lines, words, and
+%%% characters. This is produced by Robert
+%%% Solovay's checksum utility.",
+%%% }
+%%% ====================================================================
+
+\chapter{Some e-mail comments about treatment of wide objects}
+\label{wide-things}
+
+\begin{footnotesize}\begin{verbatim}
+From: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" <beebe@EDU.UTAH.MATH>
+Date: Tue, 18 Dec 90 17:17:39 MST
+
+In the current LaTeX, input of the form
+
+\begin{center}
+...something...
+\end{center}
+
+does not center the ...something... if its box is wider than
+textwidth; instead, it is flush against the left margin, and
+extends into the right margin.
+
+I feel this is counterintuitive, and the situation happens
+often enough with wide tables, that I sought, and found, a
+solution:
+
+% This environment allows wide centered objects to spill into the
+% margins, evenly on both sides
+\newenvironment{widecenter}{
+ \bgroup
+ \makeatletter
+ \@flushglue = 0pt plus 1fil minus \textwidth
+ \makeatother
+ \begin{center}
+}{
+ \end{center}
+ \egroup
+}
+
+This solves my own problems, but the question for the LaTeX
+redesign is:
+
+ Should centering into the margins be the default
+ behavior of the center environment?
+
+Obviously, the default definition of the center environment could
+be easily modified to work this way.
+
+I personally would vote for such a change, unless someone exhibits
+good reasons to the contrary.
+\end{verbatim}\end{footnotesize}
+\begin{center} --- \end{center}
+\begin{footnotesize}\begin{verbatim}
+From: bbeeton <BNB@COM.AMS.MATH>
+Date: Thu, 20 Dec 90 16:32:56 CET
+
+nelson asks whether over-large centered items should be allowed
+to exceed the margins automatically.
+
+while i agree that centering of items that are slightly wider
+than the text area is usually preferable to having it shifted
+to the right, in cases such as centered titles an even better
+solution is to divide the centered text into more shorter lines.
+
+it's my feeling that many people tend to ignore overfull boxes in
+any event, and full automatic centering might tend to camouflage
+situations where reasonable action would yield a better result.
+so i'd be in favor of keeping a widecenter environment, for
+intentional use in situations where there isn't any choice.
+\end{verbatim}\end{footnotesize}
+\begin{center} --- \end{center}
+\begin{footnotesize}\begin{verbatim}
+From: MITTELBACH FRANK <PZF5HZ@EARN.RUIPC1E>
+Date: Thu, 20 Dec 90 17:46:11 CET
+>
+> while i agree that centering of items that are slightly wider
+> than the text area is usually preferable to having it shifted
+> to the right, in cases such as centered titles an even better
+> solution is to divide the centered text into more shorter lines.
+>
+> it's my feeling that many people tend to ignore overfull boxes in
+> any event, and full automatic centering might tend to camouflage
+> situations where reasonable action would yield a better result.
+> so i'd be in favor of keeping a widecenter environment, for
+> intentional use in situations where there isn't any choice.
+
+What Barbara is implicitly pointing out is that there are two
+or perhaps three distinct concepts connected with centering of
+items.
+
+ 1) Centering of text and objects similar to text in a
+ `reasonable' way. If things do not fit into a
+ given frame (\hsize) then the user gets a waring
+ and an overfull box. This is more or less
+ realized in the currrent LaTeX environment.
+
+ 2) Centering of items on the current page regardless of their
+ size, or at least within some given extra size. This is
+ useful for tables figures etc. and only possible in the
+ current LaTeX by using \makebox to hide the actual size.
+
+ 3) Centering of text within a given frame so that lines are
+ neither too long nor too short. This can be done automatically
+ only making direct use of \leftskip and \rightskip.
+
+I suppose the correct way to handle this is to either provide
+different environment or (which I favor) to add attributes to the
+center environment to address the special cases. I think that the
+default setting could be left as it is.
+
+A similar problem arises with flushleft and flushright environments.
+In case of flushleft we miss a raggedright environment for text
+typesetting which is able to hyphenate in a given range.
+\end{verbatim}\end{footnotesize}
+\begin{center} --- \end{center}
+\begin{footnotesize}\begin{verbatim}
+Subject: Re: Wide things
+From: Don Hosek <DHOSEK@EDU.CLAREMONT.HMCVAX>
+
+>My first reservation is that, in publishing practice, it seems normal
+>[1, p. 336; 2, p. 158] to set tables in a smaller typeface than the body of
+>the text. [1] says "tables may be set in small type or footnote size, or the
+>size may vary from one table to another ... ". [2] seems to imply that it
+>is normal to set tables in an 8-point typeface, presumably when the
+>body of a document is in 10-point (and suggests going down to 7- or 6-point
+>if a table won't fit in 8-point). In fact [1] and [2] recognise that
+>"getting tables to fit" is often difficult, and devote several paragraphs
+>to tactics for dealing with the difficulties. So I think that:
+>* the user should still get a warning if a centred thing is allowed to
+> spill into the margin. The user should then e.g. go and read [1] and [2]
+> to decide whether to accept the "spillage" or to e.g. see whether
+> column-headings could be made more concise and/or decide whether to change
+> font-size
+>* there is a case for making the font-size in the "successor to tabular"
+> a feature of the design. Typically if a design has main text in 10-point,
+> the design might give 8-point as the default in the "successor to tabular".
+> Then (a) LaTeX would conform to what appears to me to be publishing
+> practice (b) the proportion of tables whose width causes problems would
+> be reduced (and less users would bother people like me about them).
+
+Below is an excerpt from my LaTeX class notes which explains how
+I teach users to deal with the situation here and now. Although the
+text deals simply with centering and the like, the approach can be
+applied to other items of table formatting as well (many of my LaTeX
+styles provide a somewhat fancier aroundtbl environment built-in).
+
+The tabular environment is normally treated as just a big letter.
+For example, it's possible to get LaTeX to typeset something that
+ 4 1 ii
+looks like 123 345 fgh in the middle of a paragraph. This is
+ 7 12 q
+seldom actually desired, but useful to know. Where this becomes
+particularly noticable is that a tabular environment in its own
+paragraph is typeset with paragraph indentation, viz:
+
+ 4 1 ii
+ 123 345 fgh
+ 7 12 q
+
+rather than flush left as you might prefer. The best way to deal
+with this problem is to define an aroundtbl environment which
+will tell LaTeX how to postion the tabular. The reason for
+defining an environment in this fashion is that it makes it
+easier to change how the tabulars will be placed: if one simply
+told LaTeX to center each tabular and then decided to typeset all
+tabulars flushleft, every instance of tabular would need to be
+changed. Defining the aroundtbl environment would reduce the work
+to simply changing a single definition.
+
+Using the aroundtbl environment, one would simply type something
+along the lines of the following for each tabular:
+
+\begin{aroundtbl}
+\begin{tabular}{cc}
+These columns & are \\
+lined up & and centered
+\end{tabular}
+\end{aroundtbl}
+
+
+The following definitions are three possibilities for definining
+the aroundtbl environment:
+
+\newenvironment{aroundtbl}{\begin{center}}{\end{center}}
+
+will center each tabular.
+
+\newenvironment{aroundtbl}{\begin{flushright}}{\end{flushright}}
+
+will place each tabular flush against the right margin.
+
+\newenvironment{aroundtbl}{\begin{flushleft}}{\end{flushleft}}
+
+will place each tabular flush against the left margin.
+
+n.b. You should never use the center, flushright, or flushleft
+environments outside of the definition of a new command or
+environment.
+\end{verbatim}\end{footnotesize}
+\begin{center} --- \end{center}
+\begin{footnotesize}\begin{verbatim}
+From: Leslie Lamport <lamport@COM.DEC.SRC>
+Date: Wed, 2 Jan 91 20:12:58 CET
+
+Once again, the discussion on LaTeX-L is sailing off into the wild blue
+yonder. The document style should not try to figure out that because
+this is the left-hand page of an article for a physics journal edited
+by a woman, overlong equations should extend to the right. This kind
+of nonsense will produce 126-megabyte document styles that will exhibit
+three new bugs per month for ten years.
+
+Problems such as things that don't fit on a line require user
+intervention. They are solved, as the final step in producing a
+document, by inserting "visual-formating" commands.
+
+Instead of all this pie-in-the-sky discussion about how to do
+everything automagically, how about giving some thought to how the user
+can EASILY specify where this particular equation or table should be
+placed on this page of this version of this document. Or, more
+generally, on how visual-formating commands, which may have to be
+changed each time a new version is created, should be integrated
+with the idealogically correct logical-formating commands.
+\end{verbatim}\end{footnotesize}
+\begin{center} --- \end{center}
+\begin{footnotesize}\begin{verbatim}
+From: David Rhead ...
+Subject: Tables (which may be wide)
+Date: 9 Jan 91 15:25:49
+To: latex-l%dhdurz1@uk.ac.earn-relay
+Msg ID: < 9 Jan 91 15:25:49 GMT A101BA@UK.AC.NOTT.VME>
+
+Would there be a consensus in favour of the following?
+
+1. Have a standard name for "an environment into which people normally
+ put non-floated tables". Names currently on offer include Don
+ Hosek's "aroundtbl" and my "displaytable". I'll use the name "N"
+ below (where N denotes an unknown).
+
+2. In the manual, mention N (as the environment into which the user
+ normally puts a table) before mentioning center, etc. (to which the user
+ might have to resort if user intervention is required for a particularly
+ awkwardly sized table).
+
+3. In the standard styles, have a fairly simple definition of N, but
+ one which conforms to a common publishing convention. E.g., in the
+ successors to report, article and book, something like
+ \newenvironment{N}{\begin{center}\begin{footnotesize}}%
+ {\end{footnotesize}\end{center}}
+ would do (although a definition involving Nelson's widecenter
+ or Frank's "center with attributes" could be used). Thus the user
+ would go
+ \begin{N}
+ \begin{tabular}{...} % or tabbing, or their successors
+ ...
+ \end{tabular}
+ \end{N}
+ I'd justify the footnotesize as a "common publishing convention" by
+ reference to Butcher's book and the Chicago Manual of Style (see my last
+ mail) which both talk in terms of tables usually being set in a smaller
+ typeface than the main text (but people who work for publishers would
+ be better placed than me to advise). Such definitions should be
+ sufficiently simple that they don't generate "3 bugs/month for 10 years".
+ Yet the existence of N would make it clear "what one should do with a
+ table" and having a reduction in size as standard (if adopted) would
+ save a bit of "support" time by allowing more information in before
+ problems of size arise.
+
+4. If someone is writing a style-file for a particular application, and has
+ to implement a particular design, it will be up to them how ambitious
+ they are in their re-definition of N.
+
+ People attenting Don Hosek's classes might simply replace center by
+ flushright or flushleft.
+
+ If a "a woman editor of a physics journal" has to enforce a house-style
+ that doesn't lend itself to a simple re-definition of N, it would be up
+ to her whether she goes for:
+ (a) a complicated re-definition of N, in the hope that, although she can
+ expect to spend time finding bugs in her definition, the time she spends
+ on coding and bug-fixes may be less than the time she would have spent
+ in "visual formatting",
+ (b) visual formatting, by replacing N by lower-level commands in the
+ few cases when the simple definition leaves things sticking into
+ a margin (or margins).
+ If she goes for (a), and is sufficiently confident of the code to put it
+ "in the public domain", people will look to her for maintenance of the
+ code, not to the people who produced the simple code in the standard
+ styles.
+
+ Similarly, it would be open for someone writing their own style file
+ to try making N intelligent enough to "fit" awkwardly sized tables
+ automatically, but maintenance would be a matter for them. E.g. if
+ someone produces a style-file that lays a document out in the style
+ of the PostScript manuals, it would be up to them whether they try
+ to make N intelligent enough to use the "heading margin" when "necessary",
+ and if so whether they risk putting the style-file in the public domain.
+ Nothing they did would imply any additional maintenance for the
+ simple definitions used in the "standard styles".
+
+
+There would then be the following open questions:
+
+* the name to be used for N
+
+* the relationship with the "floating environments".
+
+ Should it be possible to have a common numbering sequence for the captions
+ for both fixed and floating tables? If so, it would presumably be necessary
+ to define N so that, as far as floats were concerned, it was as if a
+ \begin{table}[h] had been possible. Otherwise, numbering could get out of
+ sequence if a floated-table floated past a fixed-table.
+
+ Should a float automatically do an N? If it's an environment that's
+ specifically designed to float tables, I'd say "yes" for the standard
+ styles, although obviously anyone writing anything else could do what
+ they liked.
+\end{verbatim}\end{footnotesize}
+\begin{center} --- \end{center}
+\begin{footnotesize}\begin{verbatim}
+From: MITTELBACH FRANK <PZF5HZ@EARN.RUIPC1E>
+Date: Thu, 10 Jan 91 14:11:27 CET
+>
+> Once again, the discussion on LaTeX-L is sailing off into the wild blue
+> yonder. The document style should not try to figure out that because
+> this is the left-hand page of an article for a physics journal edited
+> by a woman, overlong equations should extend to the right. This kind
+> of nonsense will produce 126-megabyte document styles that will exhibit
+> three new bugs per month for ten years.
+
+Of course, the document style should be able to figure
+out that this is a left hand page and place an example
+(as in the LaTeX book) into the correct margin. The
+same might be true for other objects in special
+application. This is not a question of standard styles,
+but one of my goals for the LaTeX reimplementation is
+to provide the necessary tools for the designer to
+produce such styles if desired.
+
+...
+In this special case, the concept of a
+`displaysomething' environment looks like a good idea
+to me, at least much better then telling the user to
+use center, etc. for things like this. ...
+
+>
+> Problems such as things that don't fit on a line require user
+> intervention. They are solved, as the final step in producing a
+> document, by inserting "visual-formating" commands.
+>
+That there are a lot of cases which can not be solved
+automatically is clear (for this reason I like to have
+e.g. user/editor invention via attribute). But is not a
+bad idea to free a standard document from visual
+formatting by adding standard logical concepts which
+are missing so far (do not let you guide solely by
+trying to keep the LaTeX book rewrite to a minimum).
+This can and should be discussed, that just the reason
+for this list.
+
+> placed on this page of this version of this document. Or, more
+> generally, on how visual-formating commands, which may have to be
+> changed each time a new version is created, should be integrated
+> with the idealogically correct logical-formating commands.
+>
+
+This is an interesting side remark, should there be
+some way to make visual formatting like \newpage
+visible? I remember a case where somebody said
+\samepage without any grouping and it took me a long
+time to find out why his document was formatted in a
+funny way.
+
+\end{verbatim}\end{footnotesize}
+
+