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Upon reading the supreme court's Dobbs v. Jackson Decision, I was quite intrigued by its meticulous, book-like typesetting. Intrigued as I am, I inspected the f
by chazeon 4y ago
Upon reading the supreme court's Dobbs v. Jackson Decision, I was quite intrigued by its meticulous, book-like typesetting. Intrigued as I am, I inspected the file properties in Acrobat Reader, it only tells it was created using Acrobat Distiller. Interesting, I was expecting LaTeX or InDesign. Nevertheless, the beautiful typesetting make me want to read the whole thing.
The linked article answers many questions of mine. It provide a wonderful context on typesetting in other courts. It is good, and also not surprised to know that "best-designed court opinions" is produced by the supreme court. It is also good to know that "Times New Roman is forbidden" in supreme court.
The supreme court's opinion looks better than Congress documents as well.
- pyuser583 4y agoI found an article that claims the “Century-only” rule isn’t about aesthetics- the court just wants to be have a meaningful word count limit. That requires limits on typeface. https://www.cocklelegalbriefs.com/blog/preparing-your-brief/legal-brief-format-century-font/ https://www.cocklelegalbriefs.com/blog/preparing-your-brief/...
- jrochkind1 4y agoI don't understand, isn't the number of words in a text the same regardless of what font it's set in?
- Veen 4y agoIt’s easier to estimate word counts in printed documents when the font is consistent. You can’t assume all parties have access to a digital copy.
- pyuser583 4y agoIt’s about verifying the word count by looking at the number of pages. Making X pages roughly equal to Y words (or at least characters). By itself, typeface/font doesn’t matter. But typeface/font, combined with character size and white space rules (indents, line spacing, spaces after commas, etc.) are necessary for word counts to have meaning. Otherwise, a lawyer could use a very small font, low size, or very little white space to cram more words in the same space. So really it’s about being able to verify the word count by looking at the paper and not counting the words.
- MrVandemar 4y ago> Upon reading the supreme court's Dobbs v. Jackson Decision, I was quite intrigued by its meticulous, book-like typesetting. Apparently you can polish a turd.
- Tabular-Iceberg 4y agoCan you please explain for us non-Americans why that's a turd?
- MrVandemar 4y agoI refer to the fact that, however beautifully typeset the document is, the substance of the document is abhorrent and objectionable. So: a beautifully presented piece of horrific fucking shit. I'm not American either (thank goodness).
- Tabular-Iceberg 4y agoThat doesn't explain anything. Why is it so abhorrent and objectionable?
- wheybags 4y agoIt's the ruling that rolls back roe vs Wade, the old ruling that forced all states to allow abortion. Unless you're living under a rock, I'm sure you've heard of this, perhaps not by the name of the ruling though. (I'm not American btw)
- Tabular-Iceberg 4y agoThat still doesn't explain it. I read the text, not all of it, but at least the most important bits. Then I went to https://www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution.htm https://www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution... and did a Ctrl-F for "abortion" and found nothing, so the reasoning checks out. It seems perfectly justified to roll back Roe v. Wade, regardless of what your position on abortion as a nationwide right is. This is what I struggle to understand about the outrage over Dobbs v. Jackson.
- layer8 4y agoAcrobat Distiller is a conversion tool and can be used as a printer driver. The typesetting may still come from a software like InDesign.