5 ms·

I looked at sample chapter, the fonts and layout are visually repulsive.

by AmazingEveryDay 12d ago

_Microft 9d ago
This made me have a look and I do like it a lot. The wide margins remind me of university coursebooks.
- amelius 9d ago
  > The wide margins remind me of university coursebooks. What I want is a paperback where the margins are chosen such that you can read the text when you fold back the facing part of the book.
polotics 9d ago
Sir, you have a knack for inspiring commentary: the exact opposite of damning with faint praise! Also 0% slop it made me pre-order the book immediately.
- JKCalhoun 9d ago
  That would (of course) be praising with faint damnation. (Or is it praising with generous damnation?)
  - HPsquared 9d ago
    Like a double negative.
    - fuzzfactor 8d ago
      It can get hard to follow after a while :) How about a triple-play, damning with damn damnation?
deleted 9d ago
[deleted]
MarkusQ 9d ago
Congratulations, you are now quoted on the page!
kps 8d ago
Baskerville's fine. Bland, but fine.
InsideOutSanta 8d ago
Why in the world would you write something like that. Genuinely, what good does this do, other than hurt people?
- AmazingEveryDay 8d ago
  It's my honest opinion - visually it stood out to me as bad looking. I think you know better than to accuse me of hurting people, when merely I present opinion about how a book looks! It's a harsh world out there, there is far worse being said.
  - InsideOutSanta 8d ago
    There's a difference between having an opinion and sharing it in a hurtful way. > I think you know better than to accuse me of hurting people No, I actually really don't. You saw something and posted something that was clearly meant to hurt the person who created it, with absolutely no upside for anyone involved.
- elevation 8d ago
  I'm a fan of the book. Love the topic and the thoughtful approach! I wouldn't have hassled the author. But since the author has already been hassled in vague terms, I'll add some objective specifics from a quick review of chapter 9: * Type face imbalance: italics appear to be in a smaller font than the roman text AND italics appear to be rendered from a different baseline. * The text body is 90-characters wide (want <70 in a non columnar print layout) * hyphenated words -- yet still ragged right!!! * inadequate negative space around introduction -- combined with the imbalanced italics, the body text changes font size 3 times in the first three sentences. * in a bound work, margins should slightly alternate between even and odd pages to honor the origin of the binding The italics is an unacceptable flaw in the main body font -- it's uncannily distracting -- when I first read it something felt off, but I couldn't put my finger on it. You could manually adjust the glyphs with a tool like font forge, but it would be easier to select a different font that the publisher has already licensed. Typographers typically target a maximum line length of 66 characters. This number is an empirical sweet spot for human ergonomics and comprehension, but if you must exceed it, you want to accommodate by slightly increasing the leading (inter-line spacing.) If you're exceeding it to try and save paper, consider a columnar layout. Ragged-right is an acceptable professional choice when lines are too short to sensibly justify them. But above 40 characters-per-line, you can reliably justify the text cleanly to both sides with hyphenation and stretching the inter-word spacing[1]. This rendering enables hyphenation (a compromise on comprehension) without realizing the benefit of this trade off! The margins of a bound work should slightly alternate between left and right pages (not a requirement for a PDF.) One positive note: the layout does appear to have widow and orphan management. And the chapter headings in a classy font. Somewhat more subjectively, Subsection titles are aligned into the margin. The reasoning is likely "helps you scan to a subsection quickly" but if I were the editor I'd refer you to works [0] where the Chapter headings are to the left but the subsection headers are aligned with the text. To the author: You write well and clearly enjoy the topic. You deserve a better layout editor than you had this round. [0]: https://www.london.ac.uk/sites/default/files/study-guides/computer-security.pdf https://www.london.ac.uk/sites/default/files/study-guides/co... (page 1) [1]: In this newsprint scan, narrower columns are left ragged-right, but columns with ~40 characters are justified: https://www.stanleypackaging.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/NEWSPRINT-1.jpg https://www.stanleypackaging.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/... [2]: Analog Devices has some of the best type-set datasheets in the industry. You'll find 66-character columns, coherent letterface choices, adequate whitespace, and they do a great job of bending the rules to accommodate full-page tables. A great reference if you're also laying out both text and diagrams. https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/ADF4001.pdf https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data...
poulpy123 8d ago
What ? It's very lisible even if I prefer the text to be justified
hulitu 8d ago
> I looked at sample chapter ... and found nothing interesting

I looked at sample chapter, the fonts and layout are visually repulsive.

_Microft 9d ago

This made me have a look and I do like it a lot. The wide margins remind me of university coursebooks.

amelius 9d ago
> The wide margins remind me of university coursebooks. What I want is a paperback where the margins are chosen such that you can read the text when you fold back the facing part of the book.

polotics 9d ago

Sir, you have a knack for inspiring commentary: the exact opposite of damning with faint praise! Also 0% slop it made me pre-order the book immediately.

JKCalhoun 9d ago
That would (of course) be praising with faint damnation. (Or is it praising with generous damnation?)
- HPsquared 9d ago
  Like a double negative.
  - fuzzfactor 8d ago
    It can get hard to follow after a while :) How about a triple-play, damning with damn damnation?

deleted 9d ago

[deleted]

MarkusQ 9d ago

Congratulations, you are now quoted on the page!

kps 8d ago

Baskerville's fine. Bland, but fine.

InsideOutSanta 8d ago

Why in the world would you write something like that. Genuinely, what good does this do, other than hurt people?

AmazingEveryDay 8d ago
It's my honest opinion - visually it stood out to me as bad looking. I think you know better than to accuse me of hurting people, when merely I present opinion about how a book looks! It's a harsh world out there, there is far worse being said.
- InsideOutSanta 8d ago
  There's a difference between having an opinion and sharing it in a hurtful way. > I think you know better than to accuse me of hurting people No, I actually really don't. You saw something and posted something that was clearly meant to hurt the person who created it, with absolutely no upside for anyone involved.
elevation 8d ago
I'm a fan of the book. Love the topic and the thoughtful approach! I wouldn't have hassled the author. But since the author has already been hassled in vague terms, I'll add some objective specifics from a quick review of chapter 9: * Type face imbalance: italics appear to be in a smaller font than the roman text AND italics appear to be rendered from a different baseline. * The text body is 90-characters wide (want <70 in a non columnar print layout) * hyphenated words -- yet still ragged right!!! * inadequate negative space around introduction -- combined with the imbalanced italics, the body text changes font size 3 times in the first three sentences. * in a bound work, margins should slightly alternate between even and odd pages to honor the origin of the binding The italics is an unacceptable flaw in the main body font -- it's uncannily distracting -- when I first read it something felt off, but I couldn't put my finger on it. You could manually adjust the glyphs with a tool like font forge, but it would be easier to select a different font that the publisher has already licensed. Typographers typically target a maximum line length of 66 characters. This number is an empirical sweet spot for human ergonomics and comprehension, but if you must exceed it, you want to accommodate by slightly increasing the leading (inter-line spacing.) If you're exceeding it to try and save paper, consider a columnar layout. Ragged-right is an acceptable professional choice when lines are too short to sensibly justify them. But above 40 characters-per-line, you can reliably justify the text cleanly to both sides with hyphenation and stretching the inter-word spacing[1]. This rendering enables hyphenation (a compromise on comprehension) without realizing the benefit of this trade off! The margins of a bound work should slightly alternate between left and right pages (not a requirement for a PDF.) One positive note: the layout does appear to have widow and orphan management. And the chapter headings in a classy font. Somewhat more subjectively, Subsection titles are aligned into the margin. The reasoning is likely "helps you scan to a subsection quickly" but if I were the editor I'd refer you to works [0] where the Chapter headings are to the left but the subsection headers are aligned with the text. To the author: You write well and clearly enjoy the topic. You deserve a better layout editor than you had this round. [0]: https://www.london.ac.uk/sites/default/files/study-guides/computer-security.pdf https://www.london.ac.uk/sites/default/files/study-guides/co... (page 1) [1]: In this newsprint scan, narrower columns are left ragged-right, but columns with ~40 characters are justified: https://www.stanleypackaging.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/NEWSPRINT-1.jpg https://www.stanleypackaging.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/... [2]: Analog Devices has some of the best type-set datasheets in the industry. You'll find 66-character columns, coherent letterface choices, adequate whitespace, and they do a great job of bending the rules to accommodate full-page tables. A great reference if you're also laying out both text and diagrams. https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/ADF4001.pdf https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data...

poulpy123 8d ago

What ? It's very lisible even if I prefer the text to be justified

hulitu 8d ago

> I looked at sample chapter ... and found nothing interesting