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# RE: RCR a "placeholder" for candidates with no designation

- To: <rcr@dieboldes.com>
- Subject: RE: RCR a "placeholder" for candidates with no designation
- From: "Ken Clark" <ken@dieboldes.com>
- Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 10:17:58 -0800
- Importance: Normal
- In-reply-to: <014001c1ebe1$441a5570$0103a8c0@runyan001>

Sorry the reply delay…

The crux of the problem is that there is not enough space for two lines of text in 10 and 8 point fonts in the quarter inch between rows. When GEMS can’t fit the text in the space given, it squishes the text to make it fit. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that the Microsoft rich edit control we use for rich text does not allow us to control inter-line spacing. The spacing they give us is the typesetter standard for documents, but it is a little bigger than one would like for by-lines and designations.

There is a pretty simple work-around here. For the voters that have no designation, in the text editor hit enter and give them a placeholder designation that is a space character in the given font. That will squish the candidate name uniformly across all candidates in the race. Any other solution like a “placeholder checkbox” would amount to pretty much the same thing, and there would be no guarantee that the users checked the checkbox any more than they would remember to insert the whitespace.

One relatively simple solution here is to expand the margins a little to allow space for both lines of text without squishing. For 1.18.10, we’ll allow the user to specify small negative candidate vertical margins. We’ve allowed negative horizontal margins for a while now. Here is what your database looks like with a candidate top margin of -2. Note that KEVIN is no longer squished. It looks even more attractive with the candidate lines.

There are a couple of other solutions that are not as simple, but have been on my mind for a while. First, it would be nice to be able to specify fractional font sizes. 10 and 8 point fonts do not fit in ¼”, but 9.5 and 7.5 point fonts might.

Another idea would be to allow for row sizes of more than ¼”. Right now you can double-space the rows to ½”, but that is overkill when all you want is a by-line. It would be nice to be able to split the difference and have a ¾” single-spaced row. I have seen some competing optical scan products that seem give their users more than ¼” to play with.

Finally, it would be really nice if one day we could replace the MS rich edit control with a third party tool or maybe even roll our own. That is pie in the sky at the moment, but we can dream.

Ken

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-rcr@dieboldes.com [mailto:owner-rcr@dieboldes.com] On Behalf Of Tari Runyan
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 2:42 PM
To: rcr@dieboldes.com
Subject: Re: RCR a "placeholder" for candidates with no designation

here is the database

> ----- Original Message -----

> From: Ken Clark

> To: rcr@dieboldes.com

> Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 4:39 PM

> Subject: RE: RCR a "placeholder" for candidates with no designation

> Thanks. Can you attach a tiny-database with just this race, one precinct? I think there might be an easy work-around, but I need to play with it a little.

> Ken

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-rcr@dieboldes.com [mailto:owner-rcr@dieboldes.com] On Behalf Of Tari Runyan
> Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 2:04 PM
> To: rcr@dieboldes.com
> Subject: Re: RCR a "placeholder" for candidates with no designation

> Here is a screen shot - March Fong Eu is same font size as others but no designation to adjust candidates - you have to put a carriage return after his name to make it squish up and look like the others - they don't want to do that

> can we make a standard 2 line candidate "Placeholder" so that regardless of the amount of text the spacing is the same for each?

> > ----- Original Message -----

> > From: Tari Runyan

> > To: rcr@dieboldes.com

> > Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 3:33 PM

> > Subject: Re: RCR a "placeholder" for candidates with no designation

> > I will do it - thanks

> > > ----- Original Message -----

> > > From: Ken Clark

> > > To: rcr@dieboldes.com

> > > Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 4:01 PM

> > > Subject: RE: RCR a "placeholder" for candidates with no designation

> > > It’s pretty clear, but could you post a couple of screen shots or ballot PDFs that demonstrate the “sometimes looks a slight but larger” problem. There might be something fundamental that is causing that that we should just fix, or there might be an easy workaround for the problem.

> > > Ken

> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: owner-rcr@dieboldes.com [mailto:owner-rcr@dieboldes.com] On Behalf Of Tari Runyan
> > > Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 1:04 PM
> > > To: rcr
> > > Subject: RCR a "placeholder" for candidates with no designation

> > > Submitted: 4/24/02 Tari Runyan

> > > requested by : Santa Barbara

> > > San Luis Obispo

> > > required by: Sept 1, 2002

> > > I will give you the exact request as they gave it to me and if you need clarification I will do my best:

> > > Julie (San Luis Obispo) and I (Suzanne Post) were wondering if there would be some way of your programmers
> > > creating what would equate to a "place holder" for
> > > those candidates with no designation. It always
> > > seems to create a problem for a number of counties
> > > when there is no designation. Even when the space
> > > is removed the name sometimes looks a slight bit
> > > larger. If they could come up with something like
> > > a place holder that would not appear when printed
> > > but would take the same space as the designation
> > > it would sure make it a lot easier for all of us
> > > when the situation of no designation occurs as it
> > > often does.

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