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Re: ps2pk vs. gsftopk



> 
> > I must say that, as it looks now in xdvi, ps2pk bitmaps are worse than
> > gsftopk's (which is quite astonishing if the rasterizing code was actually
> > use in Lexmark printers...), but I am not sure that gsftopk yields as
> > good bitmaps as ghostscript + the good driver.
> 
> When I tested this last year I found the opposite!  Indeed, I went to
> the extent of writing a MakeTeXPK script to use both programs --- it
> reverts to gsftopk when type1 sources aren't available.
> 
> That was with a slightly older version of gs, though.  Has the
> rendering really improved with 3.33 ?
> 
> Karl Berry said:
> > Both ghostscript and ps2pk were based on the Type 1 rasterizer IBM
> > donated to the X consortium. So modulo any improvements Peter or Piet
> > has made, output should be similar. I've never compared the programs'
> > output directly.
> 
> I wonder if Peter or Piet are listening and could comment?
> 
>  - David.

I don't have compared the quality of the rendering of ghostscript,
ps2pk and ATM (MSDOS). I would appreciate if somebody does this in such
a way (TUGboat article?) that we eventually can work on serious
problems like distorted stems.

The type1 library IBM donated to the X-consortium is used by ps2pk as
pure as possible. I fixed some memory allocation problems and made
enhancements for TeX to cope with slanting, extending and reencoding. I
try to keep up with improvements (and vice-versa) made by people from
the X-consortium but there weren't any in X11R6.

I am surprised by Karl's message that ghostscript is also based upon
IBM's rasterizer. Perhaps he can tell us more about it.

All the best,

--Piet