no word from the mad scientist, so let's proceed anyway... *** to remind you where we were, i had freed the text from the p.g. linebreaks, set the typesize at a nice 12-point, and run it out with a 4.5-inch measure, obtained from a pagesize of 5.5*8.5-inches, with 1-inch side-margins. the text-editor version weighed in at about 567 pages, and i provided both ragged-right and justified versions. *** the next thing was to run the text using my converter. i used most linebreaks obtained from the above specs... (i made a few changes, in a process i can discuss later.) these lines had an average length of about 66 characters. for my taste, that's still too long, but it's what bringhurst recommends, and that _is_ the length our specs created. another font woulda created lines with fewer characters, because times new roman is known for being quite tight -- it was designed with that aim -- but let's not quibble, other than to note that lines in the p-book were shorter. *** once linebreaks are set, you can output them to various _pagesizes_ simply by jacking up your text-size and/or making the margins bigger; as an example of that, i ran it out at 8.5*11, with 17-point type and 1-inch margins.

http://z-m-l.com/misc/14465-8.5*11.pdf

or here's the 5.5*8.5, at 12-point type, half-inch margins:

http://z-m-l.com/misc/14465-5.5*8.5.pdf

note that i could also do a version for the iphone screen, with perhaps 8-point type and very small margins, and _all_ of these versions would have the same linebreaks... there's this myth/misunderstanding about _reflow_ that you _must_ reflow to accommodate different screensizes. that's not entirely true; it's _never_ been entirely true. for instance, consider the popular "pocket dictionary" which brags that it has the exact same pagination as a regular-sized dictionary. then, in addition, take a look at an oversized dictionary, and you are likely to find that it too has the exact same pagination. how is this done? well, it's quite simple, actually. the font-size is reduced. and, actually, it's quite _natural_ to reduce the font-size with smaller pagesize. (and to increase it with bigger.) because we hold a pocket dictionary closer to our face, and the oversize dictionary farther than a regular one... so our eyes automatically adjust to the varying fontsize. nor does this harm readability. most studies show that it's character-count that matters in terms of readability, not the actual length of a line per se. which means that our notions about "reflow" are quite confused, because those notions create _shorter_ lines when the fontsize is increased, since we're holding the window-size constant. *** at any rate, you have a couple more .pdfs to peruse... i'll do some more fiddling with this book, just for my own edification, but at this point i could consider it "finished". so if anyone has any feedback, please feel free to spill it... -bowerbird