michael said:
>   I'm in my early 20s.

ok.

age is a state of mind.


>   I like what I do.
>   I do not like eyestrain

you get eyestrain from your screens?  really?
sincerely, you need to get better equipment.
there's no good reason for eyestrain any more.


>   and I like the variety that print media provides.

ok.

i find the web has 30 times more variety,
including most stuff you can find in print,
but everybody has their own sense of taste.


>   An old term to be sure, but I like it.

i like it too.  it's charming.  and cute.        :+)


>   The only real option would be to
>   convert each text manually into LaTeX
>   or some lightweight format like asciidoc
>   (my personal favorite).

if you read the archives, you'll see that
i have been the major cheerleader here
for light-markup since way back in 2003.


>   Largely, I am looking to see
>   if anyone else has a solution

i have a solution.  it's sitting on my hard-drive.
you might be the person who springs it free...


>   before I break out an interpreter/compiler
>   and get cracking on my own.

i encourage you to get cracking on your own...
i'd love to have someone to compare notes with.
i would offer you all kinds of advice in your work,
probably (to be frank) whether you want it or not.


>   Nitpicking aside, you raise a valid point.

we're just having fun...  don't take it too seriously.

but that wasn't nitpicking.  i was running through
the checklist that you will eventually have to make,
if you want to offer your program to anybody else.
(which you might or might not wanna do, i dunno.)


>   What do I want?

yes please, do tell...


>   * Automatic or mostly automatic.

makes sense.

fully automatic just isn't possible, not across the full
p.g. library, but "mostly automatic" is within range...


>   * Font family selection. I don't personally
>   care about picking an exact font

i ask about times new roman and helvetica in particular
because some aspects of my solution can only use those.

but if we take another approach, you can use any font...


>   * Paragraph lines should run to the end of the printed page

ok, but are lines as they're wrapped in a typical p.g. e-text
too short, or too long?  in other words, what's the measure?
(that's the typographic term for the length of your lines, i.e.,
the pagesize minus your margins.)

this will depend on the fontsize, which i forgot to ask about.


>   * On screen, I like block paragraphs, but in print indented ones.

ok.


>   Optimally, this would be user-settable.

optimally, _everything_ is user-settable.


>   * Page size I would want to set, but
>   2 pages printed on an 8.5x11 sheet in practice.

that's right.


>   * I care little about hyphenation vs wrapping, but
>   I would want the text conformed to the print media,
>   not verbatim of the original edition.

that's a bit ironic, since the original edition _was_
text that was made to conform to the print media.
so there is a certain bit of contradiction in there...
but i'll let it pass.


>   This is, after all, one of the advantages of an etext
>   --the ability to reflow the content as desired.

well, yes, of course.  but once you've printed it out,
you've lost that ability-to-reflow.  so does it matter?
(never mind, it's just another philosophical question.)


>   * Page numbers, of course.

of course, of course.


>   * Curly quotes do not matter one way or another to me.

ok.


>   * em-dashes would be preferable.

ok.


>   * Footnotes and endnotes should be included, of course.

yes, of course they should be included.  i was asking if
you had a preference for one over the other, because it
can get very hairy to do footnotes in a rewrapped e-text.
it's easier to do endnotes.  but if you _want_ footnotes...

-bowerbird