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From: meuchen@grad2.cis.upenn.edu (Paul Eric Menchen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer,comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: QuickDraw problem with drawing certain fonts
Keywords: QuickDraw fonts bugs
Message-ID: <27851@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 8 Aug 90 00:34:29 GMT
References: <1990Aug1.154901.14781@ra.src.umd.edu> <1990Aug1.200516.16644@Neon.Stanford.EDU> <1990Aug2.163757.19572@ra.src.umd.edu> <1990Aug3.010400.28725@Neon.Stanford.EDU> <15305@reed.UUCP>
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In some article (this wasn't done automatically-my rn system is being buggy)
dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner) writes:
>In article <9567@goofy.Apple.COM> heksterb@apple.com (Ben Hekster) writes:
>>HOW can ANYONE call an ascent-38, descent-147 font a 50-point font!?  The
>>very FIRST page of the Font Manager chapter in Inside Macintosh [IM I-217]
>>clearly states that [deleted]
>
>Fonts and points predate Inside Macintosh by several hundred years, a
>fact you seem to have overlooked.  Not being a "type weenie", I can't
>say for sure, but I could imagine that the point size of a font full of
>weird and wonderful glyphs might relate more to what size of "normal" font
>should be used with it than its observed leading.  That is, if this
>weird font looks best with 50pt Times, then it is reasonable to call the
>font 50pt, no matter what "size" it is by other measures.

No point was overlooked. A "type weenie" of several hundred years ago would
tell you that if the greatest ascender in a face went 38 points above the
baseline and the greatest descender went 147 points below, the face was
at least 185 pt. Originally, the point size was the  verticle height of
the face as set in metal. So that all the type would line up when the metal
was flush on the top and bottom, it would have to accomodate the largest
ascender and descender. Also note that I could leave some blank space if
I wanted. My biggest ascender goes 10 pts above the baseline and the largest
descender goes 5 below, but for artistic reasons I think there should always
be a little more line spacing (don't confuse with leading yet-the lead
strips could be added later, but I want the space there no matter what,
unless the user actually cuts the metal) so I add two more point worth of
metal than normal. I would now call this 17pt so the typesetter knows
how many lines he can fit on a page.

Other complaints removed.

Paul Eric Menchen
meuchen@grad1.cis.upenn.edu