Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rphroy!caen!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!ogicse!ucsd!network.ucsd.edu!weber!nbeck From: nbeck@weber.ucsd.edu (Nathaniel Beck) Newsgroups: comp.text.tex Subject: cmr12 magstep 0 vs cmr10 magstep 1 Message-ID: Date: 9 May 91 21:30:46 GMT Sender: news@network.ucsd.edu Lines: 46 Nntp-Posting-Host: weber.ucsd.edu I recently posted a question about cmr11 which Don Hosek was kind enough to answer. But on thinking about fonts and scaling I became even more confused and am hoping that some guru out there can make matters clear again. Emtex (and other pc tex's and latex's) comes with a series of fonts or font libraries, with a series of standard (say 300dpi laserjet fonts) at magstep 0, .5, 1, etc. Now my naive calculation tells me that cmr10 magstep 1 should look pretty much like cmr12 magstep 0 and my lfonts.tex chooses cmr12 magstep 0 for its basic 12 point type. Here are a series of questions. 1. Why should I want to keep cmr10 magstep 1 if I have cmr12 magstep 0? 2. Don Hosek has provided one answer to that question - he prefers the scaled font for some purposes. But at that point it would make more sense to think of cmr10 magstep 1 as cmrnew12 magstep 0 so it could easily be used in the application preferred by Don Hosek 3. Since I am taking up several megs with magstep .5, etc fontlibs, wouldn;t it be just as efficient to have one big library with cmr10, cmr10.5, cmr11, etc. It would seem as though I could use less disk space with that scheme, since I wouldn't need cmr10 magstep 1 and cmr12. 4. Is the issue that I would need more .tfm files, and the device drivers have an easier time taking the cmr10.tfm file and increasing its dimensions for magstep .5 as opposed to looking for a cmr11.tfm. There seems little question that there must be some advantage to the magstep scheme (I don't really believe I am smarter than Donald Knuth). So could some kind guru please clear up my confusion. Thanks in advance Neal -- Neal Beck Dept of Politcal Science, UCSD beck@ucsd.edu Dislaimer: The Regents pay me (a bit!) to distribute my opinions.