French Punctuation
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Set of rules for french punctuation.
You must put
\setcharacterspacing [frenchpunctuation]
in your file.
Some length
- Espace fine (thin space) : one point
useless unit: how about 0.1 * fontsize
- Espace avant-fine (eng ?) : one point and half (1pt ½)
useless unit: how about 0.1 * fontsize
- Moyenne (half) : quart de cadratin (quart of em) (¼ em) This is the size of the small non breakable space.
- Forte ou grosse : tiers de cadratin (word space) (1/3 em)
Space rules
- « ; », « ? », « ! » : get a thin non breakable space before if the sign before is a letter or a number (id est « !!! » or « …! » and not « ! ! ! » or « … ! »). Justified space after. The small non breakable space can vary a little to adapt the justification.
- « : » : get a non breakable space before. Smaller than a normal space, bigger than a thin. x:y where 1pt < x < y and y = justified space
- « : » are never stuck to another sign (« ! : » not « !: »).
- « . », « , » : nothing before (not like in english). Justified space after.
- « — » (em dash). When used for a parenthesis, I think we must ask people to put a « ~ » or an utf8 nbsp to notify them : « bar —~foo bar~— foo ». And the result is « barx—yfoo bary′—x′ foo ». Where x=y and x′=y′. y and y′ are non breakable spaces.
- of course, in an enumeration, the space after « — » have a fix space.
- « * », « † », « ‡ », « ¹ », « ² », etc. : all notes get a — really — thin non breakable space before (sometime nothing), are before the punctuation, follow with the space depending of the punctuation.
- if the note is a letter, between parenthesis, they must be in italic.
- the inner space of quotation — “«” and “»” — use thin non breakable spaces. «xfoox». x = small non breakable space.
Other rules
- first level quotation sign are “«” and “»”, second level are « “ » and « ” ».
- the sign for hyphenate and composed words is « - » the dash, not an « – » (endash). Can be set with :
\setuphyphenmark[sign=normal]
And entering composed words like this : « composed||word »
Sorry for my bad english… « translation » welcome !