Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!columbia!rutgers!sri-spam!mordor!styx!lll-lcc!langdon
From: langdon@lll-lcc.aRpA (Bruce Langdon)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: Quality of TeX fonts
Message-ID: <648@lll-lcc.aRpA>
Date: Thu, 5-Mar-87 23:19:27 EST
Article-I.D.: lll-lcc.648
Posted: Thu Mar  5 23:19:27 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Mar-87 01:03:04 EST
References: <8176@watdaisy.UUCP>
Organization: Lawrence Livermore Labs, Livermore Ca
Lines: 33
Keywords: TeX, fonts
Summary: It's not just 'am' versus 'cm', it's how the pixel files are generated, which printer...

In article <8176@watdaisy.UUCP>, abrueggemann@watdaisy.UUCP writes:
> In this newsgroup and in publications on document processing, there
> have been several comments on the quality of TeX's built-in fonts.
> The old am-fonts are described as horrible, and the new cm-fonts
> are described as acceptable or even good.
> 
> Frankly, if I compare documents set with the old or the new fonts,
> I can hardly see a difference. ...

The first 'cm' output I saw looked thin and anemic (note the craftman's
jargon here). Then I saw 'cm' on another device, and it looked fine.
Independent of their appearance on perfect output devices, there are
VERY important judgements to be made when generating the font files
for a printer. Metafont, the program that does this from the language
that describes characters and their properties, has some parmeters
for this. 
Also, there are two kinds of laser printers. Some write black, others
erase white. For real-world printers, the font descriptions must differ.

To agree with your comment, and go further: to my eye, the results
from typical TeX users are so much better than from typical troff,
MacWrite, etc users that the difference between cm and am is minor.
(--but expert troffers, such as those who set my book in 1985, do
just as well, for my purposes.)
Anyway, it seems that output quality from 300dpi laser printers
depends on some device-dependent tuning.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
	Bruce Langdon  L-472                langdon@lll-lcc.ARPA
	Physics Department                  "langdon#bruce%d@lll-mfe.ARPA"
	Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory       
	Livermore, CA 94550                 (415) 422-5444
UUCP: ..{ihnp4,qantel,ucdavis,pyramid,styx,topaz}!lll-lcc!langdon
                  ..{gymble,ll-xn,seismo}!lll-crg!lll-lcc!langdon