Re: Keeping font overrides in crossreferece <$paratext>

[Fred Ma <fma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Neil Gould wrote:
> 
> >>> The problem remains that the cumulative effect of several
> >>> character tags (each with possibly many As-Is fields) are not
> >>> retained in cross-references.  One has to create a separate,
> >>> single character tag for each combination of character format
> >>> attributes It is do-able, but the number of combinations grows
> >>> very quickly with the number of attributes used.  Also, it is not
> >>> very convenient to apply.
> >>>
> >> This makes sense for type that is given multiple attributes in the
> >> style. However, I wonder if this holds true if an italic typeface is
> >> specified in the character style definition? An example would be the
> >> use of a family such as Frutiger, where the italics, bold,
> >> condensed, etc. are actually separate typefaces. FM can hardly
> >> "un-italicize" it if the typeface only has an italic version!
> >
> > What you say sounds reasonable.  Probably interesting
> > experiment for someone with Frutiger fonts.  From the
> > web, it looks like a nice font, along the lines of
> > Arial or Helvetica.
>
> As I do have the Frutiger font set (as well as a couple others with
> specific italics), I'd be willing to do a test for you. Do you have a
> brief example? I often use such sets in the design of a style sheet
> (template in FM jargon), and have found that character styles are retained
> when specific typefaces are used instead of just attributes.

Appreciate the offer, Neil.  I've already submitted the paper,
but for the pedagogical knowledge within the framermaker
community, please feel free to try it out anyway.  As for the
test case, I believe it is simpler to simply describe in words
here (let me know if you don't find this to be true).

Use any paragraph format with any "normal" font (e.g.
times-like, arial, helvetical, perhaps frutiger) with
no special attributes like bold, italics,
super/subscript, etc..  Hypothetically, say I want the
text

   abcdef

where the following character formats are applied

 - "bcdef" is italicized
 -  "cdef" is bolded
 -   "d"   is superscripted
 -    "ef" is subscripted
 -     "f" is underlined

The challenge is in any cross-referencing this
paragraph using <$paratext>.  We want the duplicated
text at the cross-reference to preserve all the
character formats that depart from the default
paragraph format.  The only near-solution was to create
a separate character format tag for each combination of
character formats above.  In that case:

 - "b" would have a single character format tag
   for italicization

 - "c" would have a single character format tag
   for italicization and bold

 - "d" would have a single character tag for
   italicization, bold, and superscript

 - "e" would have a single character tag for
   italicization, bold, and subscript

 - "f" would have a single character tag for
   italicization, bold, subscript, and underline

The only problem was that italics would not
be preserved.  

Thomas and Peter suggested alternative approaches,
which I have yet to try.

I guess the question that results from your reference
to Frutiger font is whether a cleaner and more robust
way exists to do this with Frutiger, especially with
regards to preserving italics.  Or perhaps the question
has more to do with how FM responds when asked to apply
character format to Frutiger when the resulting font
corresponds to a completely different Frutiger font (to
be bought separately?).

I can hazard a guess to the latter question.  I noticed
that depending on what font is chosen, sometimes not
all the options are available in the character
designer.  If these options create a new Frutiger font
when applied to the stock Frutiger font, then they will
probably not be available unless you bought those
Frutiger fonts as well.

Fred
-- 
Fred Ma
Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario
Canada, K1S 5B6

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