🚀 go-pugleaf

On 7 Dec 90 11:53:15 GMT, jeffrey@cs.chalmers.se (Alan Jeffrey) said:

jeffrey> In article <PCG.90Dec6145328@odin.cs.aber.ac.uk>
jeffrey> pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes:

pcg> Naturally this as always leaves the problem of getting TeX to print
pcg> decently (dvidoc does not quite get it right) on any low resolution
pcg> device. I may well look into this eventually; all we need is to modify
pcg> TeX so that it does all positioning in units that are a multiple of its
pcg> fundamental resolution, just like ditroff does already.

jeffrey> No thanks!  TeX has got to be device-independent, if you're planning
jeffrey> to use if for serious 2000dpi typesetting, with proofs at 300dpi and
jeffrey> previews as low as 72dpi.  TeX does a pretty decent job of placing
jeffrey> text where you want it, it's the device drivers that often can't cope.

No, this is unfortunately wrong. Currently TeX assumes an output device
of nearly infinite precision, and with all the CM fonts and symbols. The
problem is that no such device exists; for high resolution devices where
CM can be downloaded the mapping from the ideal device to the actual
device can be done in some haphazard way in the DVI driver.

The problem is tht while you can a device independent output format, you
cannot really have device independent output. For example you may use a
symbol that exists on some printers but non on others. Or, you may want
to output to a printer has has only fixed width fonts and no
proportional fonts, not to mention CM.

In order to have the best results for type of printer one must produce
different DVI files; it is no good to have a DVI file that was built
assuming the printer had CM fonts with their widths and trying to
print in Apalatino (TM) on a PostScript device. You *can* do it in the
DVU postprocessor, but the output will be ugly, as it will have to print
Palatino characters at positions determined by CM widths.

What we need for efficient printing of TeX(info) output on fixed pitch
printer is a set of font descriptions that specify constant width fonts
throughout and glue that stretches only by fixed increments for
interword and interline spacing. Dvidoc seems a start in this direction;
does anybody know of any more advanced technology?
--
Piercarlo Grandi                   | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber.cs@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth        | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg
Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk