Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 13:51:09 -0700 (PDT) From: Jamie Bowden <ragnar@sysabend.org> To: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: banner(6) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.10.10104191341360.84385-100000@moo.sysabend.org> In-Reply-To: <15071.18872.620776.754228@guru.mired.org>
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On Thu, 19 Apr 2001, Mike Meyer wrote: :Jamie Bowden <ragnar@sysabend.org> types: :> On Thu, 19 Apr 2001, Mike Meyer wrote: :> :> My grandfather is a printer. Has a Heidelberg in his garage. I don't :> :> need to steenkin' Chicago Manual of Style to confirm what Brett's saying. :> :> When he talks about a font, he's talking about something specific like :> :> Helvetica 12pt. medium. :> :So what did he call a collection of programs that are used to render a :> :typeface? *That's* the question at hand. :> Usually crap, as most suck. It's amazing just how bad computers are at :> displaying fonts properly. He uses some program to layout offset jobs, :> but for real precision small scale stuff, the movable type that changed :> the world is far superior. :Generally, yes. Every thing that computers have done to make text :easier to generate and access has also made the resulting texts :uglier, with the world wide web being the current extreme of both :trends. Didn't used to be. A lot of the software for the Mac in the late 80s and early 90s was specific to printing presses, and would properly render on screen to allow you to see what would actually come off the press (within the limits of the resolution of the monitor you were displaying to). :> :With all deference due to the old practitioners of the field, I think :> :the font foundry that created the name "scalable fonts" chose the :> :write noun to provide with a new adjective. :> I'd say they chose the 'right' one, if didn't think the way the terms are :> used in the computer industry is totally stupid. It's a typeface. :Regular PS fonts have exactly *one* thing in common with a typeface, :which makes calling them a typeface a real stretch. Changing the size and leaving the wieght in tact is still a different font. That they only allow you to change a single parameter does not change that. It just means you have really ugly fonts if you shrink or enlarge too small. :> You can scale it up or down, and change the weight on the fly to create a :> font that meets your current need. There is no need to redefine terms :> because some pointy haired moron can't read and comprehend a dictionary. :You can't change the weight of regular PS fonts - that takes a :different font. Only I guess you'd be happier if I said it takes a :different typeface. And so would most classically trained graphic artists. A friend and former coworker could render fonts on paper using only a pencil and his talent to scale and weight them freehand. :Since I've never seen a typeface - only the result of using the font :created from them - I'm curious as to what the controls that you :change to get cold type look like. Got a reference where those are :described. My grandfather let me set type as a kid. I learned a lot of interesting things, but I have no formal reference for you, sorry. One of the more interesting bits is that while using a font that has the same width is good on a computer screen, variable width is what is optimal for actual print work. Jamie Bowden -- "It was half way to Rivendell when the drugs began to take hold" Hunter S Tolkien "Fear and Loathing in Barad Dur" Iain Bowen <alaric@alaric.org.uk> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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