NYTYpography

[rhu]

OK, toonhead_npl, here's what I've noticed :-)

The byline is leaded a little lower.

The answer grid uses a narrower set, and the letters are lower in their boxes. Maybe it'll just take some getting used to, but I think the old answer grid looked nicer.

While there used to be "more than 2,000 past puzzles" in the online subscription, now there are "more than 4,000 past puzzles."

Other than that, looks identical -- great job!

As to your comment yesterday, that one of the original problems apparently has been caught and fixed in post-production for a while now, I wonder if you mean the problem I posted on last August, in which the puzzle looked like it had been halftoned?

Comments

[toonhead-npl.livejournal.com]

Very good! You got them.

One of the first things I did was tighten some of the numbers used in the leading: there were some strange numbers in there (like something placed at 11p8.45 would get budged over to 11p9) that got rounded off. Maybe this is why the byline looked lower although I don't recall purposefully changing it.

Answer grid should be using the same char width as before: I'll have to pull it up to see if it really is narrower. There was an issue where it was using someone else's Helvetica rather than Adobe's so it may be what you're seeing (even though Helvetica is pretty darn standard).

Answer grid letters lower: yes, that's the subtle change. The old template used individual text boxes for each letter (ugh -- memory hog), and the old QuarkXPress used to include descenders when centering north/south, so letters sat too high. InDesign properly centers these letters on the cap X-height vertically. You really liked it the old way? It drove me bananas.

4,000 puzzles: that's the biggie. How strange that it sat unchanged all these years.

The Sunday puzzle page will also have a change as I recall (you'll find it, I'm sure). Wait, two changes, now that I think about it.

I'm glad it looks good. It really should streamline things for everyone. Now that it's in production I've got a big list of tweaks to do but nothing very major, it seems.

The problem of the past I was referring to was before when the old system used multiple text boxes for the grids with inside borders. The boxes were just butted against each other, so all the lines inside the grid looked twice as thick as the outside. I guess someone has been fixing this manually before it went to print but the originals still had this problem.

[toonhead-npl.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I dunno what that problem from last August was. So you're saying it looked like it was using a high density screen of some dark gray instead of pure black?

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

InDesign properly centers these letters on the cap X-height vertically.

Except that I don't think it does in this case. Look at a square in today's paper containing cap E and carefully measure the whitespace above the top crossbar and the whitespace below the bottom crossbar. The letter is now sitting a hair south of center.

And given the choice between too high and too low, my eye is happier with too high (since in most text boxes, if there's extra whitespace, it's at the bottom). Or it may just be that it's what I'm used to, and after a few weeks I won't even care. (As often as I look at the answers anyway :-)

There was an issue where it was using someone else's Helvetica rather than Adobe's so it may be what you're seeing (even though Helvetica is pretty darn standard).

If only. I can't tell you how many support cases we get at work that come down to someone installing two different versions of Helvetica. (Or assuming that Helvetica-Neue is the same as Helv. Or forgetting to remove the Windows registry entry that says "When the user asks for Helvetica, use Arial, even if Helvetica has been installed.") And I still remember the "wart" on the Helvetica "8" in the original Apple LaserWriter.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Exactly. It was horrible.

[toonhead-npl.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah it does look a smidgen on the low side. Still, a lot closer to dead center than before. If it's only the result of ID's automatic vertical centering I'll leave it but if it's a specific value I set I'll probably give it a little tweak.

I meant Helvetica should be pretty much the same as long as it's from a major vendor and only appearance-wise. I've had to deal with my share of headaches much as you describe.

Tangent: Do you remember Bitstream Analogue? You'd type in a typeface and it would tell you what the Bitstream equivalent is. It would always come up with Swiss 721 for Helvetica -- is that font really pretty much the same thing?

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

It would always come up with Swiss 721 for Helvetica -- is that font really pretty much the same thing?

Yes. In the early days, Bits started by selling lookalike fonts to printer manufacturers, but couldn't afford to pay the trademark licensing fees. Swiss 721 is Bitstream's "version" of Helvetica; Dutch 801 is Bitstream's "version" of Times New Roman.

Have you played at all with "WhatTheFont" on our myfonts.com site? It's pretty cool.

[toonhead-npl.livejournal.com]

Yup and Identifont as well. The first shareware program I ever wanted to write was one to help people identify fonts. I don't think I realized just how much work it would have entailed if I ever tried going through with it.