Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!farrier
From: farrier@Apple.COM (Cary Farrier)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga Print Quality
Keywords: Desktop Publishing, Word Processing
Message-ID: <47459@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 18 Dec 90 17:17:42 GMT
References: <47347@apple.Apple.COM> <49751@cornell.UUCP>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 71

In article <49751@cornell.UUCP> johnhlee@cs.cornell.edu (John H. Lee) writes:
>I believe this is the fault of ProWrite rather than the O/S.  The printer
>driver accepts only two things:  ANSI character output, and rastport bitmapped
>graphics dump.  ProWrite uses the latter but scales the bitmap fonts so they
>look rather bad on your deskjet.  Excellence! also gives poor results on
>my 180x180dpi PaintJet when using "normal" output mode.
>
>What you are asking for is system support for scalable fonts.  However, since
>you can't ask the O/S to handle variable font sizes automatically without
>implementing something like TeX or Quickdraw, applications (ProWrite) must
>request the font and draw the rastport itself.

What about graphics.library?  All that Quickdraw is is just the Mac/GS version
of the Amiga graphics.library.  In order for an application to draw into
a bitmap, it is most likely using the graphics library routines to draw
into an offscreen rast port structure, then sending the resulting output
to the printer driver.  

Also, the fault lies in the system software, not in the application.  Would
you ask every developer to create their own screen rendering routines,
rather than supply a graphics.library?  No, you wouldn't, because the
results would be too varied and the quality would vary greatly.  This is the
same with printer drivers.

>  Bitmapped scaled fonts are
>(will be?  I'm not sure) supported in 2.0, with true outline fonts supported
>in the next release.  The former does close to what you suggested, take the
>closest available font size to the needed resolution and scale.

I don't suggest the automatic scaling of fonts, I suggested that a printer
driver would be able to hunt for larger font sizes in the system that could
be substituted.

>  The latter
>takes a mathematical model of the font and creates the individual glyphs with
>the at the exact resolution desired when needed.  In both cases, however,
>ProWrite is responsible for requesting the font at the right size, draw to
>a rastport, then dump it to the printer.  Why do this?  This allows the
>applications to do things like include graphics on the same page.

This is a backwards approach. The application should tell the driver to
draw all text, regardles of font and size.  This would not hinder the
rendering of graphics on the same page, as the application can just as
easily send a bitmap to be placed at a given location on the page.

>On the other hand, you can do what I did and buy and use software that already
>supports outline fonts internally:  Professional Page and Professional Draw.
>The Compugraphic Fonts are outline fonts that are created when needed
>(screen and printer) for maximum resolution.  The output on my PaintJet looks
>absolutely gorgeous.  I use it for reports.  It's nice to turn in almost
>laser-sharp reports with color.  With your DeskJet, output should look just
>like it came from a laser printer.

Yes, it sounds like I will have to do something along those lines.  I think
that I will be getting the PostScript module for ProWrite, and a utility
to dump postscript to my DJ.

>	John Lee		Internet: johnhlee@cs.cornell.edu
>The above opinions of those of the user, and not of this machine.

Thanks for the opinions.

Cary
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| Cary Farrier                          | Internet  : farrier@apple.com   |
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