[projectaon] Re: PDF Comment Period
- From: Ingo Kloecker <projectaon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: projectaon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2010 20:46:54 +0200
Hi,
for your information: I did not make any changes (except for fixing
obvious errors) that were not seconded by a second person. I want to
prevent making changes only a single person wants.
On Thursday 01 July 2010, Ingo Kloecker wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Thursday 01 July 2010, David Davis wrote:
> > > Let's have a comment period on the PDF format (not
> > >
> > > necessarily the text of the book itself since we're trying to
> > > evaluate the presentation more than the content) that ends this
> > > Sunday, July 4. Please take a look in the meantime.
> > > --
> > > Jon
> >
> > OK you asked for it ;)
> >
> > I haven't been following the discussion leading to the creation of
> > this PDF too closely,
> > so forgive me if I raise anything that was already discussed.....
> >
> > I'm viewing the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Professional 8.2.2 on Windows
> > XP SP3.
> >
> > I'm comparing it with my Sparrow Books 1st edition 2nd printing
> > paperback copy of Flight From the Dark
> >
> > Generally, the PDF page layout looks very good, and I could
> > certainly enjoy using this PDF in it's current state.
> > I'd give it 9 marks out 10, perhaps? ;) Maybe 8½ ;)
> >
> > Here are some nitpicks:
> >
> > - in the paperback, for the player choices for each section, only
> > the section number is in bold,
> > whereas in this PDF, the whole phrase "turn to XX" is bold. I think
> > I prefer just the number being bold
> > (although I can appreciate the whole phrase being a clickable
> > hyperlink). This is a minor issue.
>
> This could be changed easily.
I had a look at this. This cannot be changed easily because "turn to XX"
is represented by one entity. I tried to use the XPath function
replace() but xsltproc does not seem to support this function. Also
using replace() to replace the number by "\textbf{XX}" would be an ugly
hack which will break easily. In my opinion this is best solved by
making an addition to the XML files, e.g. by enclosing all numbers
inside the <link-text> tags in <number> tags (or something similar).
Jon?
> > - In the paperpack, the numbered section numbers are the same point
> > size as the body text
> > (simply bold): in this PDF they are a good few point sizes bigger:
> > they look a bit too big to me. Again, a minor aesthetic issue.
>
> Hmm. In the German editions the numbered section numbers are
> definitely bigger than the body text. (They are even set in a
> sans-serif font while the body text is set in a serif font.)
I did not change this. (It has not been seconded.)
[snip]
> > -The Action Chart is at the back of the PDF, but at the front of
> > the paperback. Not sure if this
> > really matters, although not sure why it was changed either :)
>
> In the HTML version (and in the XML all versions are created from)
> it's part of the backmatter. To me it feels more logical to put it
> next to the combat ratio table.
I did not change this. (It has not been seconded.)
[snip]
> > On a technical note: it would be better to change the page size
> > here, and have the map display as
> > a single PDF page (twice the width of all the rest of the pages:
> > ditto for the action chart, actually).
> > It should be fairly trivial to do this in LaTex?
>
> Hmm. I have no idea. :-)
I did not look into this. Also, I never heard anything about this being
possible with LaTeX. I think this is best done by creating and then
combining two separate PDFs.
> > PDF certainly
> > supports multiple page sizes in one document.
> > Otherwise, unless I have my Acrobat viewer set to "View > Page
> > Display > Two Up", I only see half the map
> > at a time, which looks very strange.
>
> True.
Hmm. What does "Two Up" mean? Does it display two pages side by side? If
yes, then IMO this feature is broken in Acrobat Reader because IMO it
should display a page with even page number next to a page with odd page
number (just as in real books). BTW, KDE's PDF reader Okular also does
it wrong.
[snip]
> > My single biggest concern is about the Souvenir font.
> > It is NOT displaying well in my Adobe Acrobat: most of the letter
> > stems are too thin and spindly,
> > making it hard to read and the glyphs of uneven thickness.
> > I did post about this before: in the PDF metadata, Acrobat does not
> > list Souvenir as being present:
> > instead it lists a series of fonts labelled "F27", "F28", "F37"...,
> > given as "Type: Type 3, Encoding: Custom".
> > This suggests to me that the pdfTex library has converted the
> > PostScript Souvenir font to a
> > PostScript Type3 font, and embedded it that way.
> > Type 3 fonts do NOT support hinting
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript_fonts#Type_3
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Font_hinting
> > Hinting is VITAL for stopping fonts looking awful on screen. This
> > is almost certainly why Souvenir is not
> > looking as nice as it should do in that PDF.
> > Googling 'PDF generation from Latex "font hinting" support' seems
> > to give a fair few hits but I haven't had time to read them now...
> > If you were doing this on Windows I would be full of suggestions
> > as to how to set your Distiller job options,
> > but my hands a bit tired here since you are on linux.
> > I think either you need to get a better version of the Souvenir
> > font, or get a better PDF creation library (that will encode
> > the Souvenir so that Hinting information is retained - which
> > probably means PostScript Type1, or TrueType (or and OpenType
> > wrapper round either)).
>
> Not sure what to do about this. I'm using the standard way for using
> a PostScript font with LaTeX.
It turns out that I had to add the mapping information for the Souvenir
font to the mapping file texmf/fonts/map/pdftex/updmap/pdftex.map. (I
did already add it to another mapping file before.) Adding fonts to a
LaTeX installation really should be easier.
I have uploaded an updated PDF where the font issue should be resolved.
Regards,
Ingo
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