[comp.sys.mac] laserwriter linewidth

housen@ssc-vax.UUCP (12/09/86)

A few days ago I posted a question regarding how one can set the
line width used by the Laserwriter.  The tech support people at Apple
provided an answer, which I am passing on in case anyone is interested.

All you need to do is make a call to PicComment with kind=182 (see IM),
dataSize=4 and a dataHandle which leads to a Quickdraw point.  The
vertical component of the point is the numerator and the horizontal
component is the denominator of a scaling factor that the current
pen size is multiplied by to obtain a new pen size.  For example,
if the point is (v=2,h=7) then the pen width and height are multiplied
by 2/7 to obtain the new pen size.  Apparently there was an error in
Tech Note #91, which claimed that the new pen size is given directly
by the components of the point.

This seems to work, although I found that I needed to preceede the
PicComment with at least one call to DrawString or LineTo (e.g. write
a space character with DrawString), otherwise nothing printed.  Argh.


                             Kevin Housen

                             Boeing Aerospace, Seattle