| Re: TrueType font caution [message #20740 is a reply to message #20736] |
Fri, 21 July 2000 00:00  |
Harvey Rarback
Messages: 24
Registered: September 1998
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Junior Member |
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"K. Bowman" wrote:
>
> The manuals indicate that IDL draws TT fonts by tesselating the font
> characters and drawing the necessary polygons to create each individual
> character. I don't know how the PS device handles PS fonts, but I
> expect it leaves the rasterization up to the output device.
>
> From my experience, this has several implications:
>
> 1. PS files created using TT fonts are much larger than the same plots
> using PS fonts, presumably because of all the polygons that must be
> written. I was unable to combine two plots that use TT fonts (i.e.,
> two panels for a publication figure) in Illustrator even with 180 MB
> allotted for Illustrator on my Mac G4. I had no trouble doing the same
> thing with PS fonts.
>
> 2. Because TT text is actually polygons, it cannot be manipulated in a
> drawing program like Illustrator using the font commands. That is, you
> can't change the point size, alignment, etc. You can group, scale and
> move the polygons, but that is less than ideal.
This reminds me of some more disadvantages I found comparing IDL's TT fonts with
hardware fonts on the X device:
- Drawing is much slower (about a factor of 4 for Helvetica fonts displayed
to an Exceed PC X server)
- They look lousier.
--Harvey
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