CompuServe Messages

Ooof. Just looking at that page (p. 27 in the October MacUser) makes me want to pounce. But I can (probably) restrain myself from asking too many penetrating questions about the unfocused layout to comment as requested on the first paragraph. Monday-morning quarterbacking is easy, of course, but I think that first paragraph would appear awkward to any reader. I would like to see the type contoured against the side of the dropped A, especially since not doing so created an awkward widow (the word 'sizes.' under the cap). Fitting the type next to the cap would make the text read better. However, it is not MacUser style to contour initial caps, and there are good reasons to stand by the style book. Furthermore, it's a little old-fashioned to fit type around ornamental letters, and many, many good-looking publications don't do it, including The New York Times Magazine. Contouring is by no means required. However, I think they were duty-bound to do something about the widow. Several solutions come to mind. The easiest approach would be to change the word 'retailers' in line 5 to 'dealers'; then, with any luck, 'sizes' would wrap up to end the line. If that didn't work, they could cheat the gutter between the A and the text by 3 or 4 points. They could have considered merging the first two paragraphs. Or they might have had to rewrite the first paragraph to add enough text to run over at least three-quarters of the measure to support the drop cap. And thanks for the kind words. There would be more room for illustration, they tell me, if I would write shorter. And what did you think about the MacUser paragraph, anyway?