Line Spacing, Endnotes, and Superscripts Annoyances

[Paul Wake]

I have some endnotes in
http://www.xmission.com/~wake/utahjuvenilelaw.html and to do so included
the endnote numbers as superscript in the text of the article. The lines
with endnote numbers are spaced farther from the line above than the
regular lines, and the whole thing ends up looking odd. Is there a fix
I'm missing?

--
Pull MYFINGER to e-mail me
http://www.xmission.com/~wake/

[MH]

> .... The lines

with endnote numbers are spaced farther from the line above than the
regular lines... Is there a fix

I've noticed that too when I use <sup>. The fix would probably be to
increase the linespacing so one line will hold both text and super (or sub)
script.

BTW, in your example page, in the footnotes I would add a jump back into the
text; e.g. in the .htm code near the note 2, I would add <a name="note2">
and in the nr2 footnote a <a href="#note2">2</a> to jump back;
This makes it easier to continue reading the main text after jumping to a
footnote.

-----------
MH

[Stephen Poley]

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 02:57:28 +0000 (UTC), Paul Wake
<my**********@xmission.com> wrote:

I have some endnotes in
http://www.xmission.com/~wake/utahjuvenilelaw.html and to do so included
the endnote numbers as superscript in the text of the article. The lines
with endnote numbers are spaced farther from the line above than the
regular lines, and the whole thing ends up looking odd. Is there a fix
I'm missing?

Yes. See http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmat...erscripts.html

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Paul Wake <my**********@xmission.com> wrote:

I have some endnotes in
http://www.xmission.com/~wake/utahjuvenilelaw.html and to do so
included the endnote numbers as superscript in the text of the
article.
It's better to use numbers in brackets without superscripting.
The lines with endnote numbers are spaced farther from
the line above than the regular lines, and the whole thing ends up
looking odd.

That's what often happens when superscripts are used. There are several
things that affect this, including the way browsers implement
superscripts. The CSS properties line-height, font-size, and
vertical-align might be used to change this. But it's better to avoid
the problem by not using superscripts, as explained at
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www/fn.html

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

[Stan Brown]

In article <br**********@terabinaries.xmission.com> in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, Paul Wake wrote:

I have some endnotes in
http://www.xmission.com/~wake/utahjuvenilelaw.html and to do so included
the endnote numbers as superscript in the text of the article. The lines
with endnote numbers are spaced farther from the line above than the
regular lines, and the whole thing ends up looking odd. Is there a fix
I'm missing?

Within HTML, no.

Within CSS, yes. Set the line-height property to be large enough for
text plus superscipts. Be aware: If most lines don't have
superscripts, this will make your page take up more paper on
printing, and will require more scrolling for the screen viewer.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Stephen Poley]

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 17:17:31 -0500, Stan Brown
<th************@fastmail.fm> wrote:

In article <br**********@terabinaries.xmission.com> in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, Paul Wake wrote:

I have some endnotes in
http://www.xmission.com/~wake/utahjuvenilelaw.html and to do so included
the endnote numbers as superscript in the text of the article. The lines
with endnote numbers are spaced farther from the line above than the
regular lines, and the whole thing ends up looking odd. Is there a fix
I'm missing?

Within HTML, no.

Within CSS, yes. Set the line-height property to be large enough for
text plus superscipts.

It involves a little more than that, because the line-heights of normal
text and superscripts add up. See the page I mentioned for examples.

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

[Stan Brown]

In article <2c********************************@4ax.com> in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, Stephen Poley wrote:

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 17:17:31 -0500, Stan Brown
<th************@fastmail.fm> wrote:

Within CSS, yes. Set the line-height property to be large enough for
text plus superscipts.

It involves a little more than that, because the line-heights of normal
text and superscripts add up. See the page I mentioned for examples.

Namely:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmat...erscripts.html

Yes, I see now that you are right. Thanks for correcting me!

Jukka uses vertical-align, at
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/math/index.html#subsup

But either way, merely changing the line-height of the paragraph
text, as I suggested, is not sufficient.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Harlan Messinger]

Stan Brown <th************@fastmail.fm> wrote:

In article <2c********************************@4ax.com> in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html, Stephen Poley wrote:

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 17:17:31 -0500, Stan Brown
<th************@fastmail.fm> wrote:

Within CSS, yes. Set the line-height property to be large enough for
text plus superscipts.

It involves a little more than that, because the line-heights of normal
text and superscripts add up. See the page I mentioned for examples.

Namely:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmat...erscripts.html

Yes, I see now that you are right. Thanks for correcting me!

Jukka uses vertical-align, at
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/math/index.html#subsup

But either way, merely changing the line-height of the paragraph
text, as I suggested, is not sufficient.

How about this:

sup { vertical-align: baseline;
font-size: 70%;
position: relative;
top: -.5em;
}
sub { vertical-align: baseline;
font-size: 70%;
position: relative;
top: +.25em;
}

It seems to work well in IE6 and Mozilla.

--
Harlan Messinger
Remove the first dot from my e-mail address.
Veuillez ôter le premier point de mon adresse de courriel.

[Harlan Messinger]

"Harlan Messinger" <h.*********@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:7s********************************@4ax.com...

See examples of before and after addition of custom rules for handling <sup>
and <sub> in

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hmessinger/supsub.html
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hmessinger/supsubnew.html

I adjusted the styles in supsubnew.html relative to the ones I provided in
my previous posting:

sup { vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 90%; position: relative;
top: -.4em; }

sub { vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 90%; position: relative; top:
+.3em; }

Expressions using these are in red. Note the ones with nested <sup>s. Better
than IE's default handling, IMO.

Anyway, these complete fix the line height unevenness problem in IE6,
Firebird, Opera, Netscape 7. With double <sup>ing, of course, one line runs
into another so an overall increase in the line height would be warranted,
but not to correct uneven spacing.