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From: toms@fcs260c2.ncifcrf.gov (Tom Schneider)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Variable characters
Keywords: font, character size
Message-ID: <1902@fcs280s.ncifcrf.gov>
Date: 8 Oct 90 21:48:06 GMT
Sender: news@ncifcrf.gov
Organization: NCI Supercomputer Facility, Frederick, MD
Lines: 47

I would like to make some characters of a precise size, for example,
10.3 cm high.  I am being thwarted because fonts are not consistent between
PostScript printers.  That is, if I draw a character to fit just outside a
rectangle and show it on NeWS, then the same program makes the character
INSIDE the rectangle when printed to a LaserWriter ntxII.

This Is Frustrating! :-(

Is there any way to rescale the font so that it is the same size on all
printers?  For example, is there an easy way to get a hold of the exact
character size so as to correct for these non-standard effects?  (And I thought
PostScript was supposed to be a standard language, hruummph!  Aren't there
people working on making this more standard?)

Another way to do this would be to create my own fonts entirely from scratch.
Examples are at the end of the cookbook, but I'd hate to type them in (;-).
Does anyone have a copy or working example I could use?  (I can't use it if it
has a copyright restriction, but I always include original author information
in the program.)

If I could build a font from scratch, then it would solve another problem I
have, which is that in the font I prefer (Helvetica-Bold), some of the
characters reach above and below the line they rest on.  That is, relative to
an A, the letters C and G extend above and below the lines.  This is a royal
pain for what I'm doing.  So far, I have had to empirically figure out scale
factors to correct for this.  It would be nice to have a clean solution, like a
font which I have complete control over.

Thanks in advance,

  Tom Schneider
  National Cancer Institute
  Laboratory of Mathematical Biology
  Frederick, Maryland  21702-1201
  toms@ncifcrf.gov

ps
If you've gotten this far, you might want to know what it's for.  I want
to create stacks of letters.  The height of the stack is pre-defined,
as are the relative heights of each letter in the stack.  You can get
some examples by ftp from 'ncifcrf.gov' in 'pub/delila' get the compressed
PostScript files:
  lambcro.logo.Z     ribosome.logo.Z    t7.logo.Z     globin.logo.Z
(Please send me email if you do pick them up.)  These sacks are called
'sequence logos'.  They are a new way to represent DNA, RNA or protein sequence
patterns.  We have a paper in press in Nucleic Acids Research, preprints are
available.