[comp.sys.atari.st] Laser printer fonts

apratt@atari.UUCP (04/01/87)

in article <870330121248.000006FD.AOUG.MA@UMass>, Flash@UMASS.BITNET (Rick Flashman) says:
> 
> BUT! GDOS uses "bit mapped" fonts. And bit mapped fonts on a laser
> printer is sacriledge! Why? Cause you will gets LOTS of pixels drawn
> on the paper. Unless your fonts are drawn to full 300 dot-per-inch.
> Something which I doubt, because of the RAM requirements to store that,
> and you still have scaling problems.
> 
> Will Atari be putting out for the laser printer a text driver that
> uses real fonts? (line/curve drawn fonts, rather than bit mapped)

The fonts for the laser printer ARE real, they ARE bitmapped, and they
ARE drawn at 300 dots per inch.  Nobody I know of does line/curve drawn
fonts a print-time; they specify the fonts that way and then generate
bitmaps for specified resolutions.  It is these bitmaps which are used
at print time.  Metafont is the notable example of this trick.  I don't
know about Publishing Partner or anybody else.  Constructing every
character from the line/curve dataset at print time seems crazy to me,
though.

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