Re: [xsl] end-of-sentence full stop in XSL:FO?

Subject: Re: [xsl] end-of-sentence full stop in XSL:FO?
From: Torsten Bronger <bronger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 19:12:45 +0100
HallC6chen!

"W. Eliot Kimber" <ekimber@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> Torsten Bronger wrote:
>
>>> Can you explain why you need to make this distinction? [...]
>>
>> After a sentence, a bigger skip should be inserted (in certain
>> languages).  This distinction in made by TeX, and I write an XML
>> to LaTeX converter.  [...]
>>
>> I just want to know whether there is already a way to express
>> that, so that I avoid re-inventing it.
>
> As far as I know there is no FO-defined way to indicate the end of
> a sentence. I would expect any good FO implementation to do this
> automatically.
>
> What FO engine are you using?

None.  As I said, I do an XML to LaTeX conversion.  More
specifically, I convert XML produced by Texinfo (GNU's documentation
tool) to LaTeX.  Texinfo has the "@:" command to denote an
abbreviation:

    e.g.@:

and at the moment this is converted to "e.g.<neos/>" which becomes
"e.g.\ " in LaTeX.  I have access to Texinfo's source code, the
provisional <neos/> solution is by me (implemented a week ago), and
now I wonder whether somewhere in the big XML world someone has had
the problem already and found a standard solution I could adopt.

> [...]
>
> Really, this is a function of the renderer implementation and not
> something that the creator of the FO data should have to worry
> about, just like hyphenation or kerning or other aspects of line
> composition.

I disagree.  In TeX and LaTeX the explicit distinction is everyday
custom for twenty years.  Extra space after abbreviations is an
annoying layout error.  The effort of marking it explicitly is
negligible and thus should not be given to heuristic algorithms like
it's done for e.g. hyphenation.

TschC6,
Torsten.

--
Torsten Bronger, aquisgrana, europa vetus

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