Re: FAQ formatting

Scott Norwood (snorwood@balloon.ml.org)
Sun, 26 Jan 1997 11:50:39 -0500 (EST)

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On Sun, 26 Jan 1997, Vicki Richman wrote:
>
> The standard for hard-copy manuscripts submitted to editors
> is 60 characters. (The typeface is usually Courier 10 cpi,
> so the line is six inches long.) I fail to see why 64
> characters should be too short for the screen, if 60 is the
> standard among publishing professionals.
>
> Most of the world may use over 70, but most of the world
> does not follow professional guidelines. FAQ writers are not
> most of the world.

So, then, what is the disadvantage to formatting for 75-79 columns? The
FAQ that I write (rec.arts.movies.tech) was edited using vim, and as
far as I can tell, there have been no complaints about the format.
I know that standard USENET posts ought to be formatted for around 70
columns due to indentation for quoting purposes, but my FAQ has
followups set to 'poster' and so this doesn't seem to be much of
an issue.

At some point (when I get around to learning LaTeX), I'd like to put
the whole thing into LaTeX format, to make possible the convenient
generation of HTML and PostScript formats, as well as ASCII, but
I haven't yet gotten around to doing that. When I do, the FAQ will
probably get a major revision, as well (It's only a few months old).

Comments?

-- Scott

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