Re: An important article about computer typography

On 15 Feb 2005 23:32:02 +0100, Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote:

> Yeah, sadly. TeXs Metafont does adjust the outline points for low
> resolutions. And it does so for high resolutions, too. But TrueType
> and PostScript do not. Metafont is quite professionally designed. It's
> not mentioned that that article, although it exists for a long time now.

Although MS's Typography articles seem much less self-serving than other
MS articles, perhaps Metafont was considered not worth their attention.
I'd say that Metafont is something that Qalamites might like to learn
about (if not to use). I'm fairly sure it is the creation of Donald Knuth,
one of the most-capable programmers living.

Long ago, Scientific American printed a paragraph in which certain
parameters (numbers that define, in this case) for the letters of the text
were changed just a wee bit for each consecutive letter. I've forgotten
details, but the progressive transformation might have been, say, from
serif to sans.

Although Metafont is brilliant work, as far as I know, the faces created
by it that I have seen (not many, to be sure) somehow were more functional
than attractive -- lacking beauty. I'd love to know whether a type
designer with a fine esthetic sense could use it to create a beautiful
font. I'd also lovoe to know what, say, Matthew Carter thinks of it.

[nb]

>> [1] Yes, I know dots/inch is not the usual measurement for monitors. ...

> It is under X.

Oh, golly -- American influence. We're making the world's slowest
transition to metric, by far.

> If you type xdpyinfo on the shell, it should tell the resolution of the
> screen (if configured correctly).

Thanks! New to me. I'll try that, once I get X back. (Removing too many
unwanted "packages" (applications) disabled X.)

> IIRC, modern screens even transfer their knowledge about the screen
> resolution back to X.

I wouldn't be surprised. Linux hardware detection often finds out quite a
bit.

> Programs like Gimp use that information to display absolute measures on
> the screen (so that if it claims it is 5cm, it *is* 5cm, for example).

Indeed. I have calibrated my screen more than once; harder with a stiff
ruler on a convex screen. (Mine is around 90 dpi, btw.)

> My laptop has some 75dpi, the screen at work has 96dpi and some modern
> Laptops have more than 100dpi (1600x1280 at 15" are beyond 100dpi, for
> example).

>100 dpi: Very nice! Thank you.

Xerox PARC (research labs) made a LCD with 300 pixels/inch, some time ago.
That's about 11.8 px/mm, if I was careful.

Thanks, again.

--
Nicholas Bodley /*|*\ Waltham, Mass.
The curious hermit -- autodidact and polymath
Freedom from hypocrisy is a very good idea.