Re: bug? gap appears in columnset

[Lars Huttar <lars_huttar@sil.org>]

Hans wrote,
> Just wondering ... do you think that the first pages look ok?

Thanks for your response.
By "look ok", are you referring to the closeness of the lines of text?
It does seem kind of close, but within acceptable limits, depending on
other constraints; however I'm not really the one to make aesthetic
decisions about the document. I'm just trying to implement what the
customer wants.

Also, the minimal example is stripped down to minimally exercise the
unexplained behavior, so it doesn't reflect the fact that in our actual
document, we reduce the font size in places where we reduce the
interlinespace. In that sense, maybe a less minimal example would serve
the purpose better. I'll work on that, now that I know the font size may
be an integral part of the problem.

> You mess 
> with the interlinespace in a way that will make the outcome never look 
> okay.

I'd like to know more what that means, but I think it's elaborated on
below when you talk about baselineskip.

> Also, columnsets assume that the interlinespace is sane.

Can you point me to documentation on the constraints that define what
kind of interlinespace is sane?

Also, given the goal that "For using ConTeXt, no TeX programming skills
and no technical background are needed. Some basic knowledge of
typography and document design will enable you to use the full power of
ConTeXt" (http://wiki.contextgarden.net/What_is_ConTeXt), does/could
ConTeXt issue an error when its assumptions are violated?

> \setbox0\hbox{Tg}\the\htdp0,\the\baselineskip
>
> gives
>
> 10.59601pt,9.3pt
>
> so, any line that has a character with ascender and descender will 
> enforce a larger than 9.3pt distance + lineskip and mess up any 
> prediction cq. heuristics

I can't find any reference defining \htdp0, but I'm guessing it means
the height+depth (where depth means how far descenders extend below the
baseline) of the "Tg" box.
I'm also confused as to why you're adding 9.3pt + lineskip, when in my
limited understanding of TeX, I understood lineskip to be *part* of the
distance between baselines, rather than an additional distance. But
maybe that's not important to the main issue.

I'm trying to formulate a rule for knowing whether "interlinespace is sane".
Is it that interlinespace needs to be more than or equal to the maximum
of (height + depth + lineskip) of any line in the text?

Thanks again for your help.

Lars

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