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Subject:Re: What is wrong with white space? From:"Brierley, Sean" <Brierley -at- QUODATA -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 27 Jul 1999 09:07:50 -0400
Hallo:
White space is an interesting subject matter.
Bad use of white space confuses the eye and/or draws attention away from the
words. Unintended rivers of white space, such as those that *some* contend
result from using two (or three <g>) spaces after a period, are considered
bad use of white space.
Good use of white space includes sizing your text columns (4-inches is a
good length for readability), leading, space above and below paragraphs,
whether to indent the first para of a sentence, whether to outdent, indent,
or align numbered lists . . . all of these things play off white space to
catch your eye, keep your interest, and increase readability and therefore
make communicating your subject easier.
While we can all agree on some basic design principles, such as that using
all caps all the time is bad and maybe, just maybe we need more than one
paragraph in the 500-page document, obviously we don't all agree on some of
the finer points.
So, can anyone recommend any books written about use of white space,
paragraph length, column size, and other such design elements?
Sean
sean -at- quodata -dot- com
P.S. I use ALL CAPS, courier, with no spaces between sentences (and 0.25-in.
margins). On 11x14.
