laser-lovers@uw-beaver (05/24/85)
From: msev%phobos@cit-hamlet.arpa OK, I don't own stock in any company that makes laser printers. (In fact I've never even *seen* a laser printer!) But I happen to have a few shares of Apple. My copy of the Quarterly Report just arrived, set, you guessed it, on the LaserWriter. Comparing the latest Q2 report against its Q1 predecessor (conventionally typeset) is rather interesting I think. I'm no font- connoisseur, and certainly no font-snob, but Q1 is obviously superior. Actually, I think the LW fonts, as such, are OK. How to characterize the deficiencies? Is it "spacing problems"? Well, occasionally two characters seem to touch when they shouldn't. I don't think that's the greatest problem, though. My general impression of the difference is that the Imagewriter version is a bit more "ragged". This must be partly the dot matrix showing, but perhaps also due to a somewhat less that perfect reproduction in the final printing. (I would be interested to see spatial autocorrelations and power spectra measured from both texts. These might show the "regularity of strokes" referred to in earlier contributions.) I would expect a brand X laser printer (with its own defaults) to look a little different. But would it be significantly closer to typeset quality? Or is this laser stuff all "swill"? --- I should pick better investments; then I could spend all day in my office puffing on a pipe (you all do smoke pipes, don't you?), and compose wondrous critiques of last night's font tasting bash. -Martin Ewing USPS: Radio Astronomy, Caltech MS 105-24, Pasadena, CA 91125 ATT: 818-356-4970 CITnet: mse @ phobos ARPAnet:mse%phobos @ CIT-HAMLET BITnet: mse@caltech 2 mtrs: AA6E 147.12 MHz (+0.6) Radio Astronomy DECnet: PHOBOS::MSE