When working with large documents, or even across multiple (smaller) documents, I often find that I forget which typographical consistencies I should stick to.
With TeX being inherently consistent in the way it does things, most things are kept organized without the user even knowing about it. Additionally, using a customized documentclass (like memoir
, for example) or packages (like xspace
and titlesec
, to name two) improves on this consistency by user's choice. Sometimes, however, you are left to your own devices and have to do things manually. Of course, the latter could also stem from not knowing that a package exists to do the job for you, or because you'd rather have more control over the placement/use of a certain things without having it automated or globally set.
To this extent, I though this would be a good place to ask the question: "Which tools/techniques do you use to maintain consistency within your document?"
Sure, the question sounds broad. Many answers are scattered across this site and elsewhere (like the Chicago Manual of Style or Bringhurst's Elements of Typographic Style). I was hoping to contain this diverse knowledge base in one location on TeX.SX (similar to what was done for Showcase of beautiful typography done in TeX & friends and LaTeX IDEs).
Here are some examples of useful (manual) tips/tricks:
The TeX Book mentions (p 25) the use of ties (
~
) in the context of Thor's "A SHORT STORY" when typesettingMr.~Drofnats
:A good typist will use ties within names...
\emph or \textit provides a good example of when/why to use either
\emph
or\textit
.The contents of DO’s and DON’Ts when typesetting a document has some very relevant manual application of consistencies, including:
- Put a tilde before references or citations, e.g.,
Jie~\cite{habit06}
. - Differentiate between text comma and math comma, e.g., type
for $x=a$, $b$, or~$c$
instead offor $x=a,b$, or $c$
. - Write ellipsis using
\ldots
instead of three dots.
- Put a tilde before references or citations, e.g.,
The
l2tabu
documentation also provides an interesting list of "do's and dont's".
Any more?
\footcite
.