info-mac@utcsrgv.UUCP (info-mac) (05/11/84)
Date: 10 May 1984 16:36:40-EDT
From: uw-beaver!David.Anderson@CMU-CS-G
Subject: WYSIWYG?
To: utcsrgv!peterr
To: microsof!infomac
I'm rather perturbed by the fact that with both MacPaint and MacWrite, what
you see is often NOT what you get. Some examples:
MacPaint: Every 10th raster line is deleted when an image is printed
(always!). The reason for doing this is fairly straightforward -- the
printer prints only 72 dpi vertically, but 80 dpi horizontally, while the
screen is 80 dpi in both directions. In order to preserve the aspect ratio
and the size of the displayed image, every 10th raster line is just left out
when printing. Unfortunately, this is rather noticable: text gets
scrunched; shaded areas become streaked. If you don't believe me, simply
print the current window while in MacPaint and see what happens to the
parallel lines in the window's title bar. Possible fix: add an option that
prints images 72 dpi horizontally and vertically. This would make the
printed version larger than the displayed version, but at least they would
have the same appearance.
MacWrite: The problem is that right justified text often isn't. Some
characters seem to have too much padding on the right side ("y", "r"), so
that if a line ends with one of these characters, it isn't quite flush.
Much worse are "l"'s: a line ending with "illegal" or "all wall" will really
stick out past the right margin (when printed, not when displayed).
Another way get text to stick way out into the right margin is to end a line
with something in italics (or even better, bold italics). The slant will
slant right into tomorrow. When I went to the end of the line and tried to
add some extra spaces so that the text would get shoved left a bit it moved
FARTHER TO THE RIGHT!
I encountered these problems when working with a very narrow document (2 3/8
inches) in 9 point Geneva. I don't know if they occur in other fonts or
sizes, but I rather expect that some of them do.