khayo@CS.UCLA.EDU (06/18/87)
Here's a slightly confusing snag that I came across recently. I've been
trying out a pre-release copy of my friend's TeXtures typesetting software,
before deciding whether to buy it for the ridiculous price of $80 (list:
$450) offered by the UCLA bookstore (students & faculty with IDs only,
but I suspect many other academic institutions will arrange a similar deal).
For various reasons (memory limitations, lack of external drive etc.) the
setup that would work for me is to write & edit the TeX source file on my
Mac + under any word processor, then typeset using TeXtures and then use
the option "Save DVI only" which produces a relatively compact file (much
smaller than the PS file I would get via <cmd>-F, and also not requiring
the LaserWriter resource to be present; this REALLY counts when you start
working with documents of 5 or more pages!). Finally, the DVI file would
be pumped into the UCLA VAX over my telephone, and then fed into "dvi2ps"
conversion program & printed on the Laserwriter connected to the VAX.
Well, I tried it - even though it sounds complicated, it isn't, and it
works, but... Using standard magnification & fonts (i.e. my TeX file doesn't
have any explicit font substitutions, everything is in the plain format,
default values etc.) all the math, italic, bold etc. parts are perfect,
except for the ordinary text mode! The latter comes out in size of roughly
8 pts., and looks terrible, because the spacing between letters looks like
the one suitable for the 10 pt. font! If you have trouble imagining it,
remember what the Imagewriter prints when "fastest" button is clicked: it
is almost as bad as that. The same source typeset by plain TeX on the same
VAX & printed on the same printer lokks fine. What is going on ??? HELP !!!
By the way, when dvi2ps processes the DVI file obtained from TeXtures,
it gives messages about font substitutions, in particular that "cmr10 at
magnification _800_ has been substituted for ... at size 1000", while
the substituted sizes of other fonts are reasonably close to the size I want
(e.g. 960 for 1000), so this is clearly the reason; but _WHY_ would this
happen? it doesn't when the VAX's plain TeX is used: the latter doesn't take
advantage of the cmr family and uses only amr. Is it possible that the
rasters for cmr, size 1000 are missing?! This is the basic font/size,
for Heaven's sake! I'm totally lost. Thank you for any help and/or hints
you can give me.
khayo [Eric Behr]
P.S. I'll post some remarks about TeXtures in lang.postscript soon.