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From: henry@angel.Eng.Sun.COM (Henry McGilton)
Newsgroups: comp.fonts
Subject: Re: Non-Proportional Fonts
Message-ID: <3384@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 26 Nov 90 18:52:16 GMT
References: <1990Nov26.033449.15210@athena.mit.edu> <40169@ut-emx.uucp>
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In article <40169@ut-emx.uucp>, clouds@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Kathy Strong) writes:

    *  Depending on just what kind of listings you're doing,
    *  though, you may not actually NEED monospaced fonts
    *  (e.g., unless you're doing tabular material, a
    *  proportional might do as well).
Seems that monospaced fonts and tabular material aren't really
that connected.  Use a table layout package such as TBL to do
tabular layout.
    *  In that case, may I recommend Glypha (a slab-serif)
    *  or American Typewriter?  Both work well as a flag to
    *  the reader that "this is listing, not body copy" and
    *  both are nice-looking, readable faces. For something a
    *  little heavier, you could try Franklin Gothic (a sans serif).

There are often problems with using a proportional font for
`computer voice'. 

    o   One problem is the spaces are usually too thin.
	Every few months, somebody types in one of the
	examples in the PostScript Blue Book where there's
	a one character string written as ( )  (open
	parenthesis, space, close parenthesis).  In the
	Helvetica font they use for PostScript, the space
	is too thin and the readers see it (and retype it)
	as ().  Then, when the program doesn't work, they
	yell `Bugs In The Blue Book!'

    o   Another problem is that words like  float  and
	file  look really stupid when the formatter of
	choice decides to inject ligatures instead of
	leaving the words the way they were typed.

		........  Henry