Re: Viewer competence

["Berthold K.P. Horn" <bkph@ai.mit.edu>]

At 02:57 PM 11/29/1999 +0100, Laurent SIEBENMANN wrote:


>Which DVI viewers do a good job of handling
>all of
>
>  --- pk fonts
>  --- PS Type 1 fonts
>  --- PS Type 3 fonts
>  --- TrueType fonts
>  --- virtual fonts based on all the above

Well, what is the definition of "good job"?

As for Type 1, any viewer using Adobe Type Manager (ATM) 
will have good rasterization, and any not using ATM will not.

As for TrueType, any using the rasterizer in Windows or the
one in the Mac OS will do as good a job as the font allows.
Which, for fonts other than the core fonts from MS, Apple,
and some MonoType fonts, is not very much.

Type 3 fonts are not likely to be much good on screen, because
the PS "fill" operator makes things too fat by 1/2 pixel all the way
around and because Type 3 fonts do not have provision for
hinting (or, put another way, because they are not Type 1 :-)
1/2 pixel is not such a big deal on high res printers, but is
very significant on screen (at 72, 96 or 120 dpi).

PK fonts restrict you to fixed magnification, so aren't very
general purpose...



Berthold K.P. Horn  mailto:bkph@ai.mit.edu  http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/bkph