cordy@qucis.UUCP (10/22/87)
I've been a big user of WriteNow for some time now, and I love it. However, it does have one enormous bug which makes it impossible to do technical paper quality work on the LaserWriter. When I first got WriteNow, I had assumed that the problem would be fixed with a quick update, but it now appears that no such update is coming, and I'll be abandoning WriteNow soon unless it does. The problem is this: Spacing of WriteNow output on the LaserWriter, particularly for bold fonts, is consistently WRONG. Some of the time it uses the correct spacing, and some of the time it doesn't. It seems not to matter whether I'm using printer spacing, font substitution, scaling, or anything else, it is still wrong, and I simply can find no way to produce publication quality output with correct spacing. I'm working on a MacPlus with a Radius FPD, System 3.2, WriteNow 1.0, LaserWriter 3.1, normally with Geneva on the screen, font substitution to Helvetica on, and reduced 12 pt -> 10 pt (i.e. 83%, as suggested by the WriteNow manual). I output via the PostScript file (%F) downloaded to a Sun with an LW 2.0 initialized with LaserPrep 3.1. Yes, I have tried all the other combinations, but I still can't force it to space correctly on the LW. Is this really a bug in WriteNow, or am I doing something completely wrong? Has it been fixed? Anyone else notice it? Jim Cordy Dept. Computing and Information Science Queen's University Kingston, Canada cordy@qucis.bitnet cordy%qucis.bitnet@wiscvm.wisc.edu
dmw3@ur-tut.UUCP (David Walsh) (10/26/87)
There are some very common mistakes that people make when using a Laser Writer. Mainly they use the space bar so that what they see in their word processor lines up from line to line. If you are doing this and expect to get your output to match you are in for a big surprise. The LaserWriter doesn't like that stuff, it seems to fiddle with the spacing itself which is fine unless you want columns to line up. The solution is to use tab stops. The LaserWriter treats tab stops as the holiest of holies, and will preserve column integrity if they are tabbed. Another common problem, but it is not the fault of the user is that if you are using a non-LaserWriter font and some of the words get chopped off at the margin the font is corrupted. All you have to do to fix it is take the latest version of Font/DA Mover (I think 3.2 will do though) and re- install the font. It should print normally. If it doesn't then you have a bad font and shouldn't use that one. Note that this also will sometimes happen on an ImageWriter as well. The fix is identical. Hope that this clears up the problem for all of you LaserWriter fans. Good luck and may your disks never crash. Dave Walsh - hiding at the UofR try: rochester!ur-tut!dmw3 DISCLAIMER: As I am nuts nobody pays any attention to me, why should my employers be any different?
isle@dartvax.UUCP (Ken Hancock) (10/26/87)
In article <38@qucis.UUCP> cordy@qucis.UUCP (Jim Cordy) writes: >I've been a big user of WriteNow for some time now, and I love it. >The problem is this: Spacing of WriteNow output on the LaserWriter, >particularly for bold fonts, is consistently WRONG. >I'm working on a MacPlus with a Radius FPD, System 3.2, WriteNow 1.0, >LaserWriter 3.1, normally with Geneva on the screen, font substitution to >Helvetica on, and reduced 12 pt -> 10 pt (i.e. 83%, as suggested by the >WriteNow manual). That is most likely your problem. You don't use Geneva if you're working with a LaserWriter. It can only substitute so well. If you want to get exactly what you see, correct spacing and everything, use HELVETICA. Why make the LaserWriter do guess work when you can tell it EXACTLY what you want? Ken -- Ken Hancock UUCP: isle@dartvax BITNET: isle@u2.dartmouth.edu DISCLAIMER: If people weren't so sue-happy, I wouldn't need one!
steele@unc.cs.unc.edu (Oliver Steele) (10/27/87)
isle@dartvax.UUCP (Ken Hancock) writes: >In article <38@qucis.UUCP> cordy@qucis.UUCP (Jim Cordy) writes: >>I'm working on a MacPlus with a Radius FPD, System 3.2, WriteNow 1.0, >>LaserWriter 3.1, normally with Geneva on the screen, font substitution to >>Helvetica on, and reduced 12 pt -> 10 pt (i.e. 83%, as suggested by the >>WriteNow manual). > >That is most likely your problem. You don't use Geneva if you're working >with a LaserWriter. It can only substitute so well. If you want to get >exactly what you see, correct spacing and everything, use HELVETICA. Or, if you MUST use Geneva, turn font substitution off so that WYS will be WYG (this cures the spacing problem) and make sure the largest size of Geneva you can find is in the System (this ameliorates the aesthetic problem). Other things to check are: make sure "Use printer spacing" is checked in the page setup dialog (this doesn't make a whole lot of difference except at small sizes and for bold text), and make sure that the same number is entered in both the "Reduce or Enlarge" editable text field at the top of the dialog and the "Ruler reduction" at the bottom. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Oliver Steele ...!{decvax,ihnp4}!mcnc!unc!steele steele%unc@mcnc.org "But remember, it's never too late to take Swahili." -- Peter Wolfenden
wmc@amethyst.ma.arizona.edu (William McCallum) (10/28/87)
>The problem is this: Spacing of WriteNow output on the LaserWriter, >particularly for bold fonts, is consistently WRONG. [when boldface is use]. I have also had this problem. I read some of the followups to this article, which suggest the problem was the use of Geneva. However, I have had the same problem with a Laser font I made using Fontographer, which takes characters from Times and Symbol. I have one idea of what the problem might be (if it's not a bug); perhaps you need to have a special bold version of the font. Does anyone have any ideas on this? By the way, I called WriteNow and they didn't know about the problem (this was some months ago, though).