Re: Font scaling and string size problem?!?
Re: Font scaling and string size problem?!?
- Subject: Re: Font scaling and string size problem?!?
- From: glenn andreas <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 08:08:09 -0500
On Sep 16, 2005, at 5:12 AM, Ondra Cada wrote:
Hello all,
I've always thought that fonts scale linearly, in the sense that if
"XYZ" in 10pt font happens to be an inch wide, then in the same
font scaled to 20pt it would be two inches. Right?
Wrong.
Or I am overlooking something pretty basic and important... anyway,
here's a simple example, Mac OS X 10.4.1:
Absolutely not - fonts have never scaled that way, ever (even going
back to the earliest days of movable type).
The idea is that when a font is small, in order to be readable, it
needs to have slightly different metrics & stroke weights (and even
shapes in many cases) than when it is made large. It is true,
however, that 32 point text "appears" to be twice the size of 16
point text, but it was all about appearances...
Needless to say, this makes taking a document that has, say, 16 point
text at 72 dpi and rendering it at 300 dpi tricky (since that make it
be in 48 point text, but then the metrics are all different, so
various line layout adjustments have to be made to make everything
look right).
The reason is plain -- I need to generate some graphics including
texts in different preview sizes; the fact that text widths do not
scale the same way as (say) plain rectangles makes a *very big*
problem.
(I've considered creating a fixed-size PDF result and scale it
later, but I am afraid it would be next to impossible, since the
complete graphics contains also some bitmap images selected on-the-
fly depending on the current resolution. So far, I haven't been
able to find another work-around... perhaps creating the fixed-size
PDF with texts and vector graphics, scale it, and only then
superimpose all the bitmaps, but that would be *lotta* work
changing the current code :( )
Thanks a big lot for any advice,
You're going to either have to just apply linear scaling to the whole
thing (i.e., use an NSAffineTransformation) or do what printer driver
writers have to do and apply various special line and character
fractional spacing. Of the two, using an affine transformation is
_far_ easier.
Glenn Andreas email@hidden
<http://www.gandreas.com/> wicked fun!
Widgetarium | the quickest path to widgets
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