Shakespeare in PDF from XML

[Anders Thulin]

aaron_watters at my-deja.com wrote:

> We took XML source markup to book format PDF documents in
> one step.  Each play took around 15 seconds.

  They look as if they did, I'm sorry to say. Typography
by algorithm -- pretty ghastly.

  Some suggestions: use the same typeface for the parts as in
the rest of the text. And adjust the indent so that the parts
fit the margin width and on the same line as the first line of
speech, or appreviate them so they do. No need to use both bold and italic
for stage directions -- italic or small caps should be enough. Avoid getting
'last lines' at the top of the the pages -- e.g. page 7
of Measure for Measure. Don't center titles on page width, but on optical
text width (same page). Please, use real quotes (6 or 9 style), not straight ones.
And I have the feeling that the lines could do with a bit
more leading -- there's plenty of space on the page, yet the
lines feel 'solid'. (Might I suggest a glance into Oliver Simon's
Introduction to Typography? He does get into typesetting dramatical
works a bit.)

  You've chosen *very* difficult texts to demonstrate the conversion
tools: setting drama is not something to leave entirely to a computer
program: it takes eyes to get right. And if it offends the eyes
... does it matter that it took only 15 seconds to produce it?
A novel would perhaps be more appropriate, and much easier to get right
without a lot of manual adjustment. (The Oxford Text Archive probably have
a few TEI-XML coded novels.)

  I'm sorry -- I've too much respect for good typography and
careful typesetting to say anything else.  I'm not sure if this
kind of work should be judged according to different criteria
than ordinary books -- but I can't think of any reason why it
shouldn't. If you can, please let me (and the others who read this)
know about it.

  (And in case you wonder, I'm reading this in the .PDF group).

-- 
Anders Thulin     ath at algonet.se     http://www.algonet.se/~ath