Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac.misc:1934 comp.sys.mac.programmer:16416 comp.sys.mac.system:964 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!shelby!neon!kaufman From: kaufman@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Marc T. Kaufman) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc,comp.sys.mac.programmer,comp.sys.mac.system Subject: Re: QuickDraw problem with drawing certain fonts Message-ID: <1990Aug3.010400.28725@Neon.Stanford.EDU> Date: 3 Aug 90 01:04:00 GMT References: <1990Aug1.154901.14781@ra.src.umd.edu> <1990Aug1.200516.16644@Neon.Stanford.EDU> <1990Aug2.163757.19572@ra.src.umd.edu> Distribution: na Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University Lines: 47 >In article <1990Aug1.154901.14781@ra.src.umd.edu> josip@ra.src.umd.edu (Josip Loncaric) writes: ->I have had a bizarre problem with a font of special math symbols which came ->with my Textures program (from Blue Sky Research, currently v1.2). Certain ->characters in CMEX10 font at 50pt (prints as 12pt size on 300dpi devices) are ->not rendered on the screen or printed properly... ->In article <15235@reed.UUCP> barry@reed.UUCP (Barry Smith) writes: -> ........... -->The problem is, as far as we can determine, due to errors in -->the Macintosh system software, specifically the QuickDraw -->graphic display language. In certain cases, especially with -->larger point sizes, fonts that contain characters that differ -->from ``normal'' placement are drawn incorrectly or -->incompletely... -->It is our belief that our fonts are well-formed, and that the -->problems you (and we) are experiencing are entirely due to -->errors in the Apple system software... OK folks. Mr. Loncaric was kind enough to send me a copy of the 50pt CMEX10 font. Here is what is going on: The font ascent is 38, descent is 147, giving a total bitmap height of 185 lines. Apple has, to my knowledge, always maintained that fonts must be no larger than 127 lines to render correctly. DTS tells me this often, and says "wait for system 7" (whatever that means). Blue Sky partially compensates for this by supplying a font height table, which gives a line offset and number-of-lines to draw for each character, since some are really small characters that are displaced (e.g. superscript parens). Character numbers 32-45, 115, and 128, however have a number-of-lines field that is bigger than 127. Quickdraw doesn't draw those, apparently thinking that the (8-bit) field is signed. It is possibly true that this field should be treated as unsigned, however there is no place in the (current) Apple documentation where this is claimed. Even though this is called a "50 point" font, by inspection it is really a 185 point font, which is larger than Apple officially supports. *I* claim that the font is NOT well-formed, by Apple's rules, and that Blue Sky is lucky to have even a subset render properly. My advice to Mr. Loncaric, and other TeX users, would be to obtain a Postscript version of the font, and use ATM, which is not subject to the 127 point limitation. Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Neon.stanford.edu)