From owner-freebsd-chat  Tue Apr 17 11:48:58 2001
Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org
Received: from lariat.org (lariat.org [12.23.109.2])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3F50837B43E
	for <chat@FreeBSD.ORG>; Tue, 17 Apr 2001 11:48:53 -0700 (PDT)
	(envelope-from brett@lariat.org)
Received: from mustang.lariat.org (IDENT:ppp0.lariat.org@lariat.org [12.23.109.2])
	by lariat.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA02038;
	Tue, 17 Apr 2001 12:48:01 -0600 (MDT)
Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20010417124229.0458bec0@localhost>
X-Sender: brett@localhost
X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 12:47:57 -0600
To: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>
From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>
Subject: Re: banner(6)
Cc: James Howard <howardjp@well.com>,
	Joseph Mallett <jmallett@newgold.net>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG
In-Reply-To: <20010417095140.A74385@lpt.ens.fr>
References: <4.3.2.7.2.20010416211727.045766e0@localhost>
 <Pine.GSO.4.21.0104161028290.23302-100000@well.com>
 <20010416191256.R27477@lpt.ens.fr>
 <Pine.GSO.4.21.0104161028290.23302-100000@well.com>
 <20010416193151.U27477@lpt.ens.fr>
 <4.3.2.7.2.20010416211727.045766e0@localhost>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Precedence: bulk
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org

At 01:51 AM 4/17/2001, Rahul Siddharthan wrote:

>I think that needs clarification.  Merely scaling a font (multiplying
>by a factor x) doesn't create a new font.  A scalable helvetica
>postscript font is the same font at all sizes.

Not true. Adobe, and others, have sometimes misused the word 
"font," applying it to what is correctly callled a typeface.
You don't scale a font; you scale a typeface in the process
of rendering a font (see below).

>Traditionally, when you scale a typeface (in particular, make it
>smaller) you're supposed to change its appearance to improve
>readability.

Not quite. When you create a font from a typeface (a process which
is called "rendering"), you may choose to employ tricks such as
anti-aliasing. The purpose of these tricks is not to change the
appearance of the typeface but rather to preserve it! Most of these
tricks deal with the pixellated nature of modern computer displays.
Some of them even employ sub-pixel rendering; see

http://grc.com/cleartype.htm

--Brett


To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message