CJKV Information Processing, 2nd Edition

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CHAPTER 7

Typography

e foundation for producing printed material in any language—no matter how basic—

involves typography. Typography refers to the use of type, specically page- and line-

layout techniques, rules, and principles. It is about page composition. is chapter is

where we are nally able to apply what we have learned in earlier chapters: Chapter 3

illustrated the tens of thousands of characters at our disposal; Chapter 4 described how

these characters can be encoded; Chapter 5 provided information about the input of these

characters through soware called input methods, using hardware called keyboards; and

Chapter 6 provided details about fonts and font formats. To a great extent, everything

comes together here, in this chapter. Aer all, the ultimate goal of processing or manipu-

lating CJKV text is to produce documents, whether printed or in electronic form.

You may have observed, perhaps even at a somewhat subconscious level, that poor ty-

pography sticks out and is easily noticed, but that good typography is almost always over-

looked and seemingly invisible. In other words, when text is poorly typeset or laid out, the

focus of the reader is on the typography, not its content. Furthermore, when text is typeset

well, the words are more directly conveyed to the reader, with less interference. us, for

typographers, and to some extent for the application ...