New Work on Japanese Layout Requirements

The W3C has been gathering requirements for Japanese text layout from in-country experts, including the original authors of JIS X 4051 via its Japanese Layout Task Force. The task force also includes representatives from the CSS, XSL-FO and SVG Working Groups. The end result will be a detailed set of requirements that will build on and extend beyond JIS X 4051, and will be published as a W3C Note in English and Japanese. The work has revealed some interesting new insights on Japanese layout for the Western experts involved. This talk describes these and some of the key points of the proposed document, referring to rules for such things as page set up using kihon hanmen, the amount of blank space associated with punctuation and parentheses, text justification and line breaking, conversion between horizontal and vertical text, etc.