Xref: utzoo comp.sys.next:1581 comp.text:3353
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!eos!amelia!wk18!jesperse
From: jesperse@wk18 (Dennis C. Jespersen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next,comp.text
Subject: TeX, Metafont, and 400 dpi NeXT printer
Summary: Metafont on NeXT makes nice 400 dpi fonts
Keywords: Metafont, TeX
Message-ID: <1515@amelia.nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 24 Feb 89 23:29:59 GMT
Sender: news@amelia.nas.nasa.gov
Reply-To: jesperse@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Dennis C. Jespersen)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center
Lines: 26

I've got TeX and Metafont running on a NeXT machine; the installation
was fairly easy, using the source files from ics.uci.edu (web sources and
web-to-C-ware) and labrea.stanford.edu (other TeX- and Metafont-ware).
I was interested in generating some 400 dpi fonts for the NeXT printer
(I had some 300 dpi fonts available which we use on an Apple LaserWriter.)
The Metafont parameters I came up with after some experimenting were:
blacker=0.75; fillin=0; o_correction=0;
(generating cmr10 at 300dpi with these parameters gave a font that matched
the "given" 300 dpi font pixel-for-pixel except for one character).
Then I tried cmr10 at 400dpi with these settings.  A comparison of the
font tables at 300 dpi and 400 dpi (from the "testfont.tex" file) shows the
400 dpi font is much improved over the 300 dpi font.  The quality of the
400 dpi font is really very good; the printer is impressive.

Generating a full set of Computer Modern and LaTeX fonts (93 fonts)
takes about 2.5 hours of processing time on the NeXT.  After packing to
pk format, the collection of pk files at magsteps 0,1,2,3 occupies
623, 753, 918, 1125 Kbytes respectively.

The dvi-to-PostScript driver I'm using is based on Beebe's dvialw; some
hacking was necessary to get it to produce correct 400 dpi output, as it
seems there are a few places in the code where the assumption is made that
the only possible output resolutions are 200, 240, or 300 dpi.

--Dennis Jespersen
jesperse@wk18