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Re: Question about "getting" font width values for same-font characters
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Re: Question about "getting" font width values for same-font characters


  • Subject: Re: Question about "getting" font width values for same-font characters
  • From: Graff <email@hidden>
  • Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 19:14:50 -0500

This is a very difficult question because it relies on so many variables. First of all, does the application render type through Carbon, Cocoa, or use its own internal routines? Will the application be doing any kerning of the fonts? Does the application use fractional fonts or only whole numbers? What is the output resolution of the font and its intended output medium? These are just a few considerations that need to be addressed.

Probably the easiest way to go about this would be to look in the AppleScript dictionaries of the applications that you want to eventually do the layout in. Is there any way that you can use the application itself to do these sort of measurements? Unfortunately I do not have XPress or InDesign so I can't help you any further with them. Maybe someone who has access to these applications can help you out further.

I could whip up a plain-vanilla measuring utility which would use the Carbon or Cocoa font management facilities but that would only get you rough approximations which would quickly fall apart for text runs of a few dozen characters or more. It's probably not worth the effort and frustration for the dubious benefits you would get.

- Ken


On Feb 7, 2004, at 5:31 PM, Macintosh info wrote:

Hello,

With an eye toward automating a variety of typesetting processes in
QuarkXPress and/or InDesign, I'd like to know if it is possible through
AppleScript to discern the absolute width (in inches, or millimeters, or
points) of any character of a given typeface at any particular size, and
doing so (hopefully) by accessing some kind of constant value for the
character, preferably from the font itself, and preferably without setting
up scripts to run through numerous tests that would discern these values?

For example:

A lowercase, untracked, 12 pt. Helvetica "w" at 100% horizontal scaling is
.12" wide (according to my way of measuring)

and

A lowercase, untracked, 12 pt. Helvetica "i" at 100% horizontal scaling is
.036" wide (according to my way of measuring)


...is there some kind of metric or constant value for these characters (and
the others in the Helvetica roman weight) that would accurately let me
predict what the absolute widths of the same characters at different point
sizes would be?

My goal is to capture these values as globals in a FileMaker database and
use multipliers to enlarge or reduce the baseline value according to
variations in point size, tracking and horizontal scaling.

Thanks,

Bill Planey
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 >Question about "getting" font width values for same-font characters (From: Macintosh info <email@hidden>)

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