Re: Word Spacing

[90taobri@BLUFFS.SCAR.UTORONTO.CA (TAO BRIAN T)]

The following revelation escaped PKBRANDON@MSUS1.MSUS.EDU's lips:
>
>Has anyone else had a problem with GS word processors when attempting to
>bold-face, underline or italicize a word in a sentence?  Looks OK on the
>screen, but when it's printed out the spacing between the styled and
>unstyled text is erratic (sometimes no space, sometimes too many).

    Underlining shouldn't affect letter spacing, but bold and italic might
cause some unwanted side effects.  None of the WP/DTP software I use on the
GS handles "fractional spacing".  You need that when you edit a document on
a low-resolution device and transfer it to a high-resolution device for
output.  On a StyleWriter, one screen pixel (typically the distance between
letters) translates to 5 printer pixels.  Therefore, you can only have some
multiple of 5 pixels between printed letters.  What happens if the optimum
spacing is, say, 3 pixels?  It gets rounded off to 5 pixels.  That's one
reason why spacing sometimes looks erratic.  Bold and italic styles affect
character widths, and the effect is amplified on the printer.  I find that
outline fonts don't have this problem, but *make sure* you are using "true"
bold/italic/bold-italic outlines, not the QuickDraw II synthesized ones.
--
Brian T. Tao    =*8-) | ::::::::> 90taobri@chasm.scar.utoronto.ca <::::::::
Dept. of Exobiology   | :> taob@r-node.pci.on.ca : taob@terranet.cts.com <:
University of Toronto | "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't."