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From: henry@angel.Eng.Sun.COM (Henry McGilton)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: making characters printed over grey background readable
Summary: Try This
Keywords: characters greyscale halftoning
Message-ID: <4671@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 17 Dec 90 23:51:33 GMT
References: <760@keele.keele.ac.uk>
Sender: news@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM
Lines: 27

In article <760@keele.keele.ac.uk>, cca13@seq1.keele.ac.uk (G.D. Pratt) writes:
    *  I have a generated som PostScript to print labels over a pale
    *  gray halftone image. The font sizes are 12 point or more and the
    *  contrast between the black letters and the gray background is OK
    *  but most of the text is unreadable. The halftoning ruins the
    *  outline of each character, whatever the point size, so it is unreadable.
What kind of printer are you using?  I tried some text on the local
LaserWriter IINTX and it looks just fine.  I didn't try it on a
write white printer.
    *  Is there a solution to this like a font definition that produces
    *  a white character slightly larger first before printing the letter.
Try something like this as a first approximation:
========================================================================
%!PS
36 36 moveto			%  Draw a gray page.  The numbers are for
612 36 sub 36 lineto		%  U. S. so-called `Standard' letter paper.
612 36 sub 792 36 sub lineto	%  Different numbers required for A4.
36 792 36 sub lineto closepath 0.90 setgray fill 0.00 setgray
/Palatino-Roman findfont 12 scalefont setfont
288 792 2 div moveto (Hello World!) false charpath
gsave 2 setlinewidth 1.0 setgray stroke grestore 0.00 setgray fill
showpage
========================================================================
Fiddle with the value before the  setlinewidth  operator to get
the results you want.

	........  Henry