Re: ja`a/na go`i

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@access.digex.net>]

>Some advantages of HTML are:
>    1.  Format is a public standard, vs. Microsoft Word, which not everyone
>        has, e.g. on UNIX, despite the predominance of Microsloth in the
>        commercial PC world.  Some people even use (blecch) Word Perfect
>        on their PCs.

We would prefer not to have to use the Word files as the distribution form,
but de facto it is the Book (to use And's description) and hence the standard.
>    2.  HTML tends to be more compact, which is important for speed of
>        downloading.  PostScript can bloat up hugely; it depends on details
>        of the font being used, whether it is coherent with what the
>        formatter (Microsoft Word) wants to use.

Oh I know - the postscript is 45 Megabytes, and compresses down to 20.

>    3.  PostScript gives you a picture of the text, which has to be displayed
>        exactly as the originator (LLG) layed it out.  HTML is the text 
>        itself.  It's hard to see how Acrobat could guarantee the ability to
>        search for the picture of a particular word, though if it was not
>        broken up in PostScripting, finding it would be easier.  Whereas, 
>        searching is trivial in HTML.

All I know is that there is a search pulldown in Acrobat 3, which is the 
freeware reader that Adobe distributes.  I understand there is a Unix version
for it.  The weakness of Adobe 3 is that it is slow.  Adavtages of a PDF 
include that it is a single file, whereas most HTML files are split into
multitudes, and searching all of them is unfriendly (I assume - maybe there
is a search tree function in some browsers?).

>    4.  On the same lines, the browser is authorized to reformat HTML to 
>        fit the available screen size and font metrics -- particularly 
>        helpful if the viewer is using a text-only browser (very fast, 
>        you'll like it!) or uses a bizarre font due to vision problems.  
>        This is a 2-edged sword: if the author has cunning 2-D alignment
>        effects that are font dependent, not relying on a tabular 
>        environment, they won't appear properly.

The examples in Ch 2 are lined up using tables.  Other examples in the book
rely on a minimum line length to prevent unfriendly wrapping.  Not cunning,
just wide.
>Microsoft Word with "Internet Assistant" is supposed to be able to
>import semi-arbitrary HTML, edit it, and save it as HTML without loss
>of information.  Whether every single fancy feature of Word can thus be
>stored and reloaded 100% through HTML, (such as headers and  footers),
>or how many HTML extensions are used that are specific to Microsoft
>Internet Explorer, I don't know.  But I think it's worth finding out,
>--More--
>at least as to the features used in the book.  (Browsers ignore extensions
>that they don't recognize, so the result is still useable.)

This is what we will probably try, but it will not be a priority at least until
we get through the initial book marketing phase, because of time to play
with it.  I am slow to pick up new S/W packages and learn them.  We got 
Pagemaker for the book, but I could not learn it in time, and we had to go
with a printer who could work with us re Word files (we ended up in Postscript,
but could not have forseen that when we started).

>Suggestion: take a representative book sample.  Print it as PDF (file
>x.pdf).

We hav that for the whole book, since that is what I work with here. A little
under 2 Megabytes.

> Save as HTML. 

How?  This is always the big question.

Note that PDF is NOT the postscript.  I think it is really an alternate to
HTML, but it doesn't have the H (no hypertext).  It is much shorter.
Advantages include that it can embed the fonts (with the current HTML for 
the book you have to install IPA and Brushstroke fonts to properly read
the screens). Disadvantage is that it is the second standard and not the first.

lojbab