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From: 39clocks@violet.berkeley.edu (Peter Marinac;;;4159743128;KL75)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Questions about Adobe fonts
Keywords: fonts Adobe RightBrain
Message-ID: <1991Jun9.164313.20140@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 9 Jun 91 16:43:13 GMT
Article-I.D.: agate.1991Jun9.164313.20140
References: <19751@csli.Stanford.EDU> <521@heaven.woodside.ca.us> <1991Jun9.152516.18035@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
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In article <1991Jun9.152516.18035@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> jeffo@uiuc.edu writes:
>In <521@heaven.woodside.ca.us> glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) writes:
>
>>These fonts are actually mastered at Adobe, from their data, so they
>>include the bitmap versions for smaller sizes and they are manufactured
>
>I was wondering why anyone bothers publishing "sizes" of scalable fonts
>
>If you've got the formula (or whatever) to generate a single character, can't
>you just plug different numbers for sizes in to get different sizes out?
>Thus never needing to go to bitmapped fonts again?
>
 
This is true with large font sizes, but at smaller sizes, particularly those
at which most text is usually set at (9,10,11,12 pt), the _low_ resolution
of the screen becomes a problem.  Scalable fonts in small sizes often look
terrible.  Take a close look at the text you are reading now and you will
see that for any given portion of a character, there are relatively few
places that you can drop a pixel and still have the character look right.
At 400dpi on the printer there are quite a few more.  The bit mapped fonts
are meant to maintain the general appearance and correct character spacing
of the font and maximize its legiblility on the screen.

Peter