Table field text formating

[John Vokey]

On 17-Dec-08, at 9:12 PM, Richard wrote:

> It may be easier to get the exact feature you need than to ask  
> RunRev to
> become a type foundry.
>
> If all you need is a one-pixel font, I'm sure there are plenty around.
>
> But perhaps we might ask why this is useful, and look one step further
> to the mechanics of the underlying text rendering in the field  
> object to
> get exactly what we most want.  It may be that such additions would
> become trivial once RunRev adds independent column alignment to  
> fields.
>
> Slogging through big blocks of text line by line and/or word by word,
> measuring each and adding/subtracting a number of special one-pixel
> characters can be quite slow, and not the sort of thing I enjoy  
> teaching
> to newcomers for simple text alignment.
>
> So hopefully instead we can just get the appearance we want just as we
> want it at the moment it's rendered.  I doesn't hurt to ask. :)
>
Yes, and we have those text-description languages available now:  
postscript (which most of us now experience as PDF) and TeX/LaTeX--- 
both of which microtype to way (way!) better than a 1-pixel  
character.  Writing the code for either is (relatively) trivial.  So,  
given every modern operating system has engines for both, all Rev has  
to do is invoke the engines when needed.  For example, in addition to  
html, one should be able to declare a field postscript or TeX/LaTeX,  
put the code, and Rev simply calls the appropriate engine/renderer to  
produce it.
--
Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html>

-Dr. John R. Vokey