Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Path: utzoo!utcs!mnetor!lsuc!pesnta!hplabs!ucbvax!laser-lovers From: phil@RICE.EDU (William LeFebvre) Newsgroups: mod.computers.laser-printers Subject: Re: Printing DVI on a Xerox 2700 Message-ID: <1703.phil.Dione@Rice> Date: Mon, 20-Jan-86 20:03:58 EST Article-I.D.: Rice.1703.phil.Dione Posted: Mon Jan 20 20:03:58 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 22-Jan-86 01:43:56 EST Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 50 Approved: laser-lovers@washington.arpa > 3) There isn't enough flexibility in the control electronics to place > characters where you want them on the page if you're doing anything > so common as trying to have a different amount of space between > words on different lines of text. > The hack of using a font with a number of different space characters > of various widths doesn't really solve the 2700 problem, since the > limit of number of characters that can appear on a page is so severe > that you find that you can't use enough of them to position the > visible characters properly. To be fair, the 2700 model II has relative horizontal commands that make the varying width space characters unnecessary. It was necessary to pull that trick with the original 2700 model I. HOWEVER: I agree 100% with David on this. The 2700 is not worth the money or the frustration. I have refrained from being critical about this machine, because of certain personal matters. But perhaps the criticism is important to keep people from making a large mistake. There is no excuse for the size limitations and language restrictions imposed by the 2700. Absolutely no excuse at all. It makes doing anything real so hard that it isn't worth the effort. Image Network's software (I'm pretty sure) works by downloading one or more fonts per job that have exactly the right characters in it to print the job. Naturally, this requires software that knows the font format. The only other alternative is to download one 2700 "font" for every typeface required by the document. TeX relies heavily on the ability to use lots of different fonts. It would not be all that hard to hit the limit of 10 (yes *TEN*) fonts per "job". Now, even if you use the trick of breaking a document up into several "jobs", you can still only load 10 (yes *TEN*) fonts PER PAGE! Remember that a 2700 "font" is really just a specific face at a specific size (i.e.: roman at 10 point). That is a very unreasonable restriction, and one that makes TeX tricky. One is pretty much forced to resort to the "Image Network" hack of building special fonts with just the characters you need. Of course, there are also restictions on the size of a particular font, and the total amount of space used by all the fonts. Don't be fooled, the 2700 is not much better than a fast line printer. Interpress printers, on the other hand..... William LeFebvre Department of Computer Science Rice University DISCLAIMER: the opinions expressed in this message are completely mine and no one else's.