ps2pk vs. gsftopk

[bkph@ai.mit.edu (Berthold K.P. Horn)]

>	[printer PS / ghostscript / gsftopk / ps2pk etc.]

> Any specialist's advice?

> Thierry

None of those rasterizers does as well as Adobe Type Manager.
But ATM is only available on Mac and Windows...

Not even the rasterizer in Display PostScript on NeXT does as well as ATM,
and certainly the `lemon' that Sun bought from Adobe for X Windows is worse.

Clones generally do not do so well, since Adobe never published their
rasterizing algorithm.  There are some hairy things in the hinting 
mechanism that clones typically miss.

Note that printer rasterizers do not have to do as well as rasterizers 
for on-screen, since they work at medium (300 or 600dpi), not low
resolution (96 dpi or higher in Windows, 72 dpi on Mac).

As a result, one should not use a printer rasterizer for on-screen work.
That is, not if you want to be able to read what is displayed.  
But then the attitude seems to be that preview is only to check 
the layout, and to read a document, you have to print it.

Too bad, life does not have to be that way :=).

Regards, Berthold.