Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 21:07:12 +0200 From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: James Howard <howardjp@well.com>, Joseph Mallett <jmallett@newgold.net>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: banner(6) Message-ID: <20010417210712.Q74385@lpt.ens.fr> In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20010417125858.0458c6f0@localhost>; from brett@lariat.org on Tue, Apr 17, 2001 at 01:01:00PM -0600 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> <20010417095140.A74385@lpt.ens.fr> <4.3.2.7.2.20010417124229.0458bec0@localhost> <20010417205532.P74385@lpt.ens.fr> <4.3.2.7.2.20010417125858.0458c6f0@localhost>
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Brett Glass said on Apr 17, 2001 at 13:01:00: > At 12:55 PM 4/17/2001, Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > > >I wasn't talking about rendering on the screen: I was talking about > >printed books. I was talking about readability in the sense of what > >the human eye can comfortably discern at small sizes. > > > >If you look at any book by a respectable publisher before 1980, you'll > >see that letters in small type are broader (relative to their height), > >more rounded, somewhat more broadly spaced (again, relative to their > >height), and contain other slight differences, though they may belong > >to the same typeface (Times/Baskerville/whatever). > > Very often, a typeface design will specify that the proportions of the > characters should change at small font sizes. This is because the > human brain and eye are nonlinear.... Quite likely. My point was that, these days, most books printed in (say) Times Roman don't change the proportions of letters at small sizes. I assumed it was because Type 1 fonts or truetype fonts don't allow for it; but maybe the reason is something else (sloppy software?) I was also saying that reserving the word "font" for a particular point size makes sense if there is such adjustment in proportion. But often, these days, there isn't. Times New Roman 6pt is exactly the same font as Times New Roman at 14pt, only smaller. Rahul To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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