Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-pcd!hpcvlx!mark
From: mark@hpcvlx.HP.COM (Mark Rowe)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: PostScript scaling off?
Message-ID: <510008@hpcvlx.HP.COM>
Date: 25 May 88 17:07:55 GMT
References: <313@elan.UUCP>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Corvallis, OR, USA
Lines: 18

>>From this I would expect to get a 5 inch long horizontal line. However, it
>>is actually about 1/32 inch too long. Is it too much to expect better than
>>1/32 inch (~10 pixels or ~0.5%) accuracy, or is this known to be what happens
>>in a LaserWriter Plus and perhaps other printers as well?
>
>Talk to a printer.  You'll find out that one point is not
>exactly* 1/72 of one inch (pretty darn close, tho.)  One
>point is 1/72.27 of an inch.  (See the red book for all
>the truly gory details.) 

The fact that one point is actually 1/72.27 of an inch will not explain any
inaccuracy in output of a PostScript file.  In PostScript the basic unit is
exactly 1/72 of an inch independent of rather or not this is actually one
point.

Mark Rowe
Hewlett Packard
Corvallis, Oregon
mark%hpcvlx@hplabs.HP.COM