Re: censored formfeeds

Paul Prescod ([email protected])
Fri, 30 Jun 1995 12:07:10 -0400 (EDT)

> > It is the responsibility
> >of the displayer or formatter program to make sure that the document
> >looks "nice" on a given device.
>
> In the case of plaintext and pre the formatter
> should not be doing any formatting it should simply pass the
> text or whatever through, why should it not pass some characters
> through, why should FF be censored. It is contrary to all unix
> philosophy to overspecify in this way.

I was referring to your question about why HTML can't specify printer
formatting precisely. If your formatter strips out certain characters
in PRE, I don't see that as an HTML problem. (although I do see that
usage of PRE as contrary to the philosophy of HTML)

> How is the <a> tag implemented on the printer - it is very specific
> to the interactive platform.

<A HREF="http://www.foo.com">foo corp.</A>

would become

foo corp.(1)

(1)See also http://www.foo.com

The concept of a "reference" is much older than hypertext. In fact,
perhaps "HREF" should be just "REF".

> It is not a question of my layout software.
> It is a question of what other people get when they print out
> the things that I present on the web.

HTML is not meant to be optimized for any particular device. It is
realtively easy to provide postscript (or formatted text) versions of the
document for those that want to print it.

Paul Prescod