merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz) (01/16/90)
In article <17663@rpp386.cactus.org>, woody@rpp386 (Woodrow Baker) writes: | Unfortunaly developers of applications | were not familiar with 72.3 in general, and so did not bother to change the | scaling matrix in thier software like they should. For most cases it really | does not matter, but in the case where you are working with printers (people) | and other typesetters it is important. OK, but if it *really* matters, it's 72.27 points per inch. See Knuth's METAFONT page 33, for example, although I suppose a chart in Websters probably has the same information. Just another point-maker, -- /== Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ====\ | on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III | | merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn | \== Cute Quote: "Welcome to Oregon... Home of the California Raisins!" ==/
jaap+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jaap Akkerhuis) (01/16/90)
Excerpts from netnews.comp.lang.postscript: 15-Jan-90 72.27! (was Re: ruler.ps - .. Randal Schwartz@iwarp.in (915) > OK, but if it *really* matters, it's 72.27 points per inch. See > Knuth's METAFONT page 33, for example, although I suppose a chart in > Websters probably has the same information. OK, here we go again. What is the size of a point. Well, webster defines it as: 15) n, a unit of measurement: as a1) n, a unit of counting in the scoring of a game or contest a2) n, a unit used in evaluating the strength of a bridge hand b) n, a unit of academic credit c) n, a unit used in quoting prices of stocks, shares, and various commodities d) n, a unit of about {1/72} inch used to measure the belly-to-back dimension of printing type point_system n, a system in which printing type and spacing materials are made in sizes that are exact multiples of the point It is obvious from these definitions, that, originally, there is no clear definition. The one quoted by Knuth is probably from one of those standard committees. My bet is that if you walk around various printing shops with a ruler (a real one, not a silly thing printed out with PostScript), ask the printers to set a line of 36 Pica (in case you want to know, that is 432 points or about 6 inch) and measure it, you will find that most times it won't meet the official standard committee specs. (It is also likely that it won't really match the size according to the spec of the typesetter manufactor). In practice, the size of a point varies in a arond 10% of 72 and inch, and there are a lot of reasons why. So if it really matters, the size of a Pica point depends on the situation. jaap Let me finish with an old article: 17-Oct-88 Re: Definition of Point David Slocombe@sq.uucp (2591) In article <YXJVEOy00UkP40aWB1@andrew.cmu.edu> jaap+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jaap Akkerhuis) writes: >Bear in mind that all these nifty numbers hardly make any sense at all in the >real world. I know of at least two models of a typesetter from the same >manufacturer which have an apparently a different size for a point. This is not >a big deal, since it is marginal. However, it starts to become annoying when >you want to combine output of both versions in one document. The linelength >will vary enough to be noticable. Too right, Jaap! A publishing house a block away from us has a Linotron 101 laser phototypesetter which does not give you anything like an exact pica in the direction of the film motion, because, long ago, a serviceman repairing the machine went off without checking that the *analog* adjustment that controls the scale in that direction was reset correctly after he had repaired the machine. It was a Friday, and an awful lot of work had to be done over the weekend on all sorts of work-in-progress, so the staff "made do" and worked out how to adjust what they were specifying so that the actual physical measurements came out right. After that it was awfully hard to find a time when it would be OK for the serviceman to come back and readjust the machine, since you couldn't afford to have corrections on jobs started that weekend not come out with EXACTLY the same measures.... and the problem was renewing itself with each new job started! The upshot is that that Linotron 101 has been running with its scale set wrong ever since. Fortunately, in sqtroff there is a ".scale" request: .scale c numerator denominator [round | trunc] where: "c" is a single letter that is the new troff scale unit (or an old one if it is being redefined). "numerator" is a non-negative integer (or number register) with some already-existing scale-indicator attached. "denominator" is a positive integer or register. "round" and "trunc" are keywords that set the way fractions will be handled with this new scale-indicator. This new request was created to enable Europeans and fussy Americans to redefine the point and Pica (the default is still 1/72 inch), but you can imagine all the interesting uses it can be put to, including dealing with permanently-misadjusted phototypesetters! ---------------------------------------------------------------- David Slocombe (416) 963-8337 SoftQuad Inc. (800) 387-2777 (from U.S. only) 720 Spadina Ave. uucp: {uunet!attcan!utzoo, utai}!sq!dns Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 2T9 Internet: dns@sq.com
pnakada@oracle.com (Paul Nakada) (01/16/90)
In article <1990Jan15.185433.4699@iwarp.intel.com> merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz) writes: In article <17663@rpp386.cactus.org>, woody@rpp386 (Woodrow Baker) writes: | Unfortunaly developers of applications | were not familiar with 72.3 in general, and so did not bother to change the | scaling matrix in thier software like they should. For most cases it really OK, but if it *really* matters, it's 72.27 points per inch. See How tough could it be to have the basic unit be a decipoint (723 decipoints per inch or 7227 centpoints per inch) You'd still have integer values, and multiplication and divides would not be too expensive.. sounds like cutting corners to me.. -Paul Nakada pnakada@oracle.com
murphyn@cell.mot.COM (Neal P. Murphy) (01/17/90)
merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz) writes: >... >OK, but if it *really* matters, it's 72.27 points per inch. See >... Could someone be good enough to explain where the industry obtained such an unusual number? As an aside, one certainly can get a good ruler from a 300 dpi printer. One must simply constrain his design to the resolution of the printer. NPN
ken@cs.rochester.edu (Ken Yap) (01/17/90)
Here is a posting I saved that tells the story. I believe that 72.27 was subsequently enshrined in some standard. Path: rochester!bullwinkle!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!qantel!lll-lcc!ucdavis!ucbvax!decvax!bellcore!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!utzoo!utcsri!utai!gh From: gh@utai.UUCP (Graeme Hirst) Newsgroups: net.text Subject: Re: Who uses points? Message-ID: <1484@utai.UUCP> Date: 26 Mar 86 04:11:32 GMT References: <130@cs.qmc.ac.uk> Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto Lines: 86 > The PostScript manual says that a printers' point is 1/72 of an > inch (or possibly 1/72.27 of an inch). Does this mean that > points are a UK/US unit only, or do printers everywhere use > them? Where does the 72.27 come from? > > William Roberts ARPA: liam@UK.AC.qmc.cs This question is answered at length in an article by Allan Haley on Nelson Hawks (1840-1929), "The John the Baptist of the American point system", in U&lc, 12(1), May 1985. Some excerpts: "It took a royal decree to force type founders to take the first step toward solving the problem of type sizing. This occurred in France in 1723. The monarchy decreed that the height of type be fixed, and established the relationships between various sizes of type. The shortcoming of this regulation was that it failed to specify the size of the smallest unit. "Twelve years later, Pierre Simon Fournier made the French regulation practical. He created the typographic point . . . In the Fournier system, there are exactly 72 points to an inch. "The trouble with Fournier's system was that is was not accepted by other type founders, and it did not conform to the official French measure for an inch . . . [50 years later,] another French type founder, Didot, further refined the concept. He made a few small changes to Fournier's system and one large one. Didot based his system on the legal foot measure in France. The Didot system became the standard among French type founders and even though the basis of the foot measure changed, the Didot system continued to grow in popularity. It eventually became the standard in most of Europe, and is still used today . . . [Meanwhile, typographic chaos continued to reign in the U.S. Type sizes were designated by names (Nonpareil, Minion, Brevier, . . .), but different founders had different standards.] "Hawks spent many hours struggling with the problem, and when he did arrive at a solution [in 1877], it was deceptively simple. ``Finding our own pica [size font] to be exactly one-sixth of an inch, the idea of adopting the mechanic's rule as a basis for measurement occurred to me. Then came the division of the pica parts. Nonpareil being one half the size of the pica the unit would have to be determined from the number of sizes above Nonpareil. These are Minion, Brevier, Bourgeois, Long Primer, Small Pica, and Pica -- six. Therefore, Nonpareil would be the other six, and pica would be 12 points.'' [So the fact that Hawks ended up with 72 points per inch, the same as Fournier, is partly coincidental! See below for th part that isn't.] "[Hawks then spent many years promoting his system. Although conversion was costly for founders, he was successful, and] lived to see his system become the standard for both the United States and Britain. "[But] every primer on type warns the neophyte that 72 points = .996 inch. What happened to the last four thousandths of an inch? Why didn't the creator of the American point system use a full inch as the basis for the standard? At the time Nelson Hawks developed the system, at least two picas were standard, and one of them measured exactly one-sixth of an inch. What happened? The APS is based on the ``Johnson pica''. ". . . It is believed that the standards for the molds and typecasting equipment for Binny and Ronaldson [the oldest American type founder, to whom Johnson was a successor] can be traced to equipment that Benjamin Franklin bought from Fournier early in the 18th century [and by Hawks's time] the Johnson pica served as the standard for seven major foundries [including Hawks's]. "And the missing four thousandths of an inch? It is believed that, even though Fournier's pica was based on an inch, four thousandths were lost as a result of active (and less than ideal) use of the original molds, and to the reproduction process, as new molds were made to replace that which had worn out. "To Hawks and his contemporaries, the difference of four thousandths mattered little anyway. [They] were working with metal type that was subject to expansion and contraction, and in dirty places where minute sizes were of little relevance." --------------------- If your library doesn't carry U&lc ("Upper and lower case, the international journal of typographics"), write to the publisher, International Typeface Corporation, 2 Hammarskjold Plaza, New York, NY 10017, who distribute it free of charge to bona fide workers in typography. -- \\\\ Graeme Hirst University of Toronto Computer Science Department //// utcsri!utai!gh / gh.toronto@csnet-relay / 416-978-8747
woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker) (01/17/90)
In article <1990Jan17.000043.1981@cs.rochester.edu>, ken@cs.rochester.edu (Ken Yap) writes: > Here is a posting I saved that tells the story. I believe that 72.27 ... > process, as new molds were made to replace that which had worn out. > little relevance." > --------------------- > > If your library doesn't carry U&lc ("Upper and lower case, the international > journal of typographics"), write to the publisher, International Typeface > Corporation, 2 Hammarskjold Plaza, New York, NY 10017, who distribute it free > of charge to bona fide workers in typography. > \\\\ Graeme Hirst University of Toronto Computer Science Department Nicely done. thanks for the info. It seems to me that someone, somewhere must have been archieving the postscript group for a while. These things come up over and over, and perhaps it would be nice to be able to access the old streams and threads of conversation periodicaly. If anyone has been arcing this stuff, let us know. I have recently started doing that, but my feed doesnot keep this stuff around for more than 3 or 4 days, and hes' up to message 344x something. This, he says, is the number of messages that have come and gone in the past 2 years or so. Cheers Woody
rudenko@cs.umass.edu (01/18/90)
According to the Red Book, section 4.4, page 61, "The unit size, 1/72 of an inch, is very close to the size of a printer's point (1/72.27 inch), which is a standard measuring unit used in the printing industry." I tried drawing a vertical line 10 inches long on a (300 dpi) DEC LN03R via: 0 setlinewidth % thinnest possible line newpath 100 10 moveto 0 720 rlineto stroke % 10 inches * 72 pts per inch % mark end points 95 10 moveto 10 0 rlineto stroke 95 730 moveto 10 0 rlineto stroke showpage I measured the length of the resultant line with a steel rule and got a length of about 9 31/32 inches. Wondering if the PostScript point was really 1/72.27 inch, I tried: 0 setlinewidth % thinnest possible line newpath 100 10 moveto 0 722.7 rlineto stroke % 10 inches * 72.27 points per inch % mark end points 95 10 moveto 10 0 rlineto stroke 95 732.7 moveto 10 0 rlineto stroke showpage The resultant line turned out to be just a hair over 10 inches long! Sending the file to the printer a second time produced lines of 9 61/64 and a hair short of 10 inches, respectively. Sending the file to the printer a third time yielded lines a hair short of 9 31/32 and as close to 10 inches as I could measure, respectively. All measurements were double checked with a second ruler. This experiment seems to indicate that the size of PostScript point is apparently equal to the printer's point, 1/72.27 inch, and not 1/72 inch as claimed by Adobe!? -- Michael Rudenko rudenko%coins@cs.umass.edu rudenko@umass.bitnet
henry@angel.Sun.COM (Henry McGilton -- Software Products) (01/18/90)
In article <8696@dime.cs.umass.edu>, rudenko@cs.umass.edu writes: * I tried drawing a vertical line 10 inches long on a * (300 dpi) DEC LN03R via: * 0 setlinewidth % thinnest possible line * newpath * 100 10 moveto * 0 720 rlineto stroke % 10 inches * 72 pts per inch * I measured the length of the resultant line with a * steel rule and got a length of about 9 31/32 inches. * The resultant line turned out to be just a hair over 10 * inches long! Sending the file to the printer a second * time produced lines of 9 61/64 and a hair short of 10 * inches, respectively. Sending the file to the printer * a third time yielded lines a hair short of 9 31/32 and * as close to 10 inches as I could measure, respectively. * This experiment seems to indicate that the size of * PostScript point is apparently equal to the printer's * point, 1/72.27 inch, and not 1/72 inch as claimed by Adobe!? 1/32 of an inch in 10 inches is an error of 0.3 per cent. The paper feed mechanism on the printer, the laser tracking machinery, the stretching of the paper due to the heat of the fusing and the compression of the feed rollers, plus the humidity, plus probably the phase of the moon and the colour of the printer room door, can easily account for an error of 0.3 per cent. Laser printers of the DEC and Apple type are not precision devices. I just took a page off a LaserWriter IINTX that has a registration error of around 1/16 inch at the moment -- it's definitely in need of repair. I suggest repeating the experiment on a 2540 dpi Linotronic. But first, replace your 0 setlinewidth to something more rational. At 2540 dpi, the thinnest line is 4/10,000 inch, and you probably won't be able to see it. The 0 setlinewidth construct to get the thinnest line is definitely a very device dependent thing to do and creates inherently non portable PostScript. ........... Henry +-------------------+---------------------------+---------------------------+ | Henry McGilton | I'll bet those people who | | | Sun Microsystems | put control-D characters | arpa: hmcgilton@sun.com | | 2550 Garcia | in PostScript files also | uucp: ...!sun!angel!henry |
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (01/19/90)
In article <130414@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> henry@angel.Sun.COM (Henry McGilton -- Software Products) writes: > * I tried drawing a vertical line 10 inches long on a > * (300 dpi) DEC LN03R ... > * I measured the length of the resultant line... > >1/32 of an inch in 10 inches is an error of 0.3 per cent. The paper >feed mechanism on the printer, the laser tracking machinery, >the stretching of the paper due to the heat of the fusing and the >compression of the feed rollers, plus the humidity, plus probably >the phase of the moon and the colour of the printer room door, >can easily account for an error of 0.3 per cent. Laser printers >of the DEC and Apple type are not precision devices. They also are not accurate devices (in the scientific-measurement sense of the two terms -- precision is how fuzzy the measurement is, accuracy is how well it matches reality). A "300 dots per inch" printer is not infrequently actually a 298dpi printer on one axis and a 302dpi printer on the other. Measure the actual resolution of your printer before blaming the software. -- 1972: Saturn V #15 flight-ready| Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology 1990: birds nesting in engines | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) (01/22/90)
There has recently been discussion in comp.lang.postscript of the North American typographers' units of measurement--the point, which is generally defined as 1/72.27 inch, and the pica, which is 12 points. At least two good-looking explanations of that curious number 72.27 were posted. This is one: > ... It is believed that, even though Fournier's pica was based on [i.e. > was 1/6 of] an inch, four thousandths were lost as a result of active > (and less than ideal) use of the original molds, and to the reproduction > process, as new molds were made to replace that which had worn out. [The "four thousandths" refers to 1 - 72/72.27, which is .00374-] And this is the other: | The 1886 standard from the United States Type Founders' Association was | based on the observation that the American-pica had an almost-relationship | to the cm: 83 picas ~= 35 cm. And so they standardized on exactly | "83 picas = 35 cm". There is, of course, no inherent reason why they could not both be true. However, nowadays the inch is defined as 2.54 cm. And 2.54*83*12/35 (where the 12, of course, is the number of points in a pica) IS NOT 72.27; it's a bit over 72.28. To have 72.27 points in an inch, 12 points in a pica, and 83 picas in 35 cm, the inch would have to be only about 2.5396 cm. This is where the cross-posting to sci.physics and sci.misc comes in. Can someone comment on just how much the lengths defined for the inch and the (centi)meter have varied in the past 104 years? I'd be surprised if either had changed as much as the 1 part in 6500 or so that's indicated here. Certainly there have been variations, but my impression was that they were on a much smaller scale than that. If I'm right, then either the 83/35 story is bogus, or there has been a further change in the point since then. (I'm rather reminded me of the story that the track gauge of the Toronto streetcar and subway systems, 58 7/8 inches, was chosen because it's exactly 1.5 meters. 1.5 meters is in fact a little over 59 inches. Yet this, too, *could* still be true, because gauges can be slightly adjusted after the system are in place...) Followups are directed to comp.lang.postscript; adjust if appropriate. Mark Brader "It is impractical for the standard to attempt to SoftQuad Inc., Toronto constrain the behavior of code that does not obey utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com the constraints of the standard." -- Doug Gwyn
jacob@BLACKBOX.GORE.COM (Jacob Gore) (01/22/90)
/comp.lang.postscript/ifarqhar@mqccsunc.mqcc.mq.OZ (Ian Farquhar)/Jan 21, 1990/ > I am just amazed by the above argument. It basically says that the > metric system is unintuitive because it is impossible to express four > whatsits in a integer number of millimeters! Well, that is so. That's why you buy your milk and gasoline by the liter and not cubic meter. > I was never taught imperial, > but have picked up a bit over the years. I fail to see that the system > has even one single virtue. How can sensible people cling to a measure > such an an acre that was originally defined as the area that one man and > an ox could plough in one day? How many square meters is a hectare? You use whatever you are accustomed to. I was brought up on metric and didn't encounter the English system until I moved to the U.S. And guess what: you do get used to 32 degrees being freezing, 95 being too hot, and 72 being just right. And you remember that it's about 1,000 miles from Chicago to Denver, and you know that they can be driven through at roughly 1 mile a minute. And you even start remembering things like "5280 feet in 1 mile" (especially if you live in Denver, the "Mile High City", and every town's greeting sign in the state lists its elevation, as do signs on all mountain passes). You remember units that you use. Just like you remember the units of time: 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, a variable number around 30 of days in a month, 12 months in a year, sometimes 365 and sometimes 366 days in a year... hardly a system resembling metric, huh? Jacob -- Jacob Gore Jacob@Gore.Com boulder!gore!jacob
zvs@bby.oz.au (Zev Sero) (01/23/90)
In article <9001220213.aa05139@blackbox.gore.com> jacob@BLACKBOX.GORE.COM (Jacob Gore) writes:
How many square meters is a hectare?
1 ha = 10 000m^2 (100^2). There was a pre-SI measure called the are
which was 100 m^2, so the ha is 100 times that.
--
Zev Sero - zvs@bby.oz.au
If a compiler emits correct code purely by divine guidance and
has no memory at all, it can still be a C compiler.
- Chris Torekifarqhar@mqccsunc.mqcc.mq.OZ (Ian Farquhar) (01/23/90)
In article <9001220213.aa05139@blackbox.gore.com> jacob@BLACKBOX.GORE.COM (Jacob Gore) writes: >/comp.lang.postscript/ifarqhar@mqccsunc.mqcc.mq.OZ (Ian Farquhar)/Jan 21, 1990/ >> I am just amazed by the above argument. It basically says that the >> metric system is unintuitive because it is impossible to express four >> whatsits in a integer number of millimeters! > >Well, that is so. That's why you buy your milk and gasoline by the liter >and not cubic meter. Actually, milk is mostly water and at 4 degrees centigrade a cubic centimeter is a milliliter and weights one gram. Do that in imperial! >> I was never taught imperial, >> but have picked up a bit over the years. I fail to see that the system >> has even one single virtue. How can sensible people cling to a measure >> such an an acre that was originally defined as the area that one man and >> an ox could plough in one day? > >How many square meters is a hectare? 10000 square meters. Not much thought required there. >You use whatever you are accustomed to. I was brought up on metric and >didn't encounter the English system until I moved to the U.S. And guess >what: you do get used to 32 degrees being freezing, 95 being too hot, and >72 being just right. And you remember that it's about 1,000 miles from >Chicago to Denver, and you know that they can be driven through at roughly >1 mile a minute. And you even start remembering things like "5280 feet in >1 mile" (especially if you live in Denver, the "Mile High City", and every >town's greeting sign in the state lists its elevation, as do signs on all >mountain passes). Fine. If you like it, you use it. Just don't make ME use it! Do you hear me, Adobe? >You remember units that you use. Just like you remember the units of time: >60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in >a week, a variable number around 30 of days in a month, 12 months in a >year, sometimes 365 and sometimes 366 days in a year... hardly a system >resembling metric, huh? Metric time is a contentious issue. There is as yet no standard, and I am unaware of any serious discussion concerning it. A couple of weeks I had to implement a series of time and date routines in C. What a pain! The problem is that such would really have to be a worldwide decision, and would almost certainly be blocked by the US, one of the three countries who are still not committed to metric! This discussion has got way out of hand! It has now diverted from being a discussion on the periphery of Postscript, to being totally outside the realms of computers! I have no objection to continuing this discussion via e-mail, but comp.lang.postscript should not remain its forum! Apologies to all who sent me e-mail about this subject. The volume has been considerable, and I am trying to answer all. However, Macquarie University actually wants me to fit in a little work between mailing... All hail Saint Fubar, parton saint of computer programmers. +-----------------------------------+-------------------------------+ | Ian Farquhar | Phone : (02) 805-7420 (STD) | | Microcomputer Support | (612) 805-7420 (ISD) | | Office of Computing Services | Fax : (02) 805-7433 (STD) | | Macquarie University NSW 2109 | (612) 805-7433 (ISD) | | Australia | Also : 805-7205 | +-----------------------------------+-------------------------------+ | ACSNet ifarqhar@macuni.mqcc.mq.oz | | ifarqhar@mqccsuna.mqcc.mq.oz | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ D
wsinkees@lso.win.tue.nl (Kees Huizing) (02/01/90)
glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) writes: > .352778 dup scale % I may have this inverted :-) >Now you can think in millimeters (or in your case, millimetres). The "point" >(or a close approximation thereof) was chosen for convenience to the >typesetting industry, to whom a 4.2334 millimeter font means nothing. This is NOT the way to do it, unfortunately. Everything will be scaled: linewidth, font sizes, etc. Instead, you have to do something like /cm {UNIT mul} def % or bind def perhaps? where UNIT is the appropriate conversion factor. And then you have to write "cm" after every measuring value :-( Thanks to Adobe who apparently didn't realise that postscript brought printing from the typesetting industry to the office, where people use ordinary rulers. Kees P.S. I am so confused by the current discussion, that I don't dare to suggest the value of this conversion factor. Can someone post it, please? -- Kees Huizing - Eindhoven Univ of Techn - Dept Math & Comp Sc - The Netherlands DOMAIN: wsinkees@win.tue.nl BITNET: wsdckeesh@heitue5 FAX: +31-40-436685
glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) (02/03/90)
In article <846@tuewsd.lso.win.tue.nl> wsinkees@lso.win.tue.nl (Kees Huizing) writes: +glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) writes: + ++ .352778 dup scale % I may have this inverted :-) + ++Now you can think in millimeters (or in your case, millimetres). The "point" ++(or a close approximation thereof) was chosen for convenience to the ++typesetting industry, to whom a 4.2334 millimeter font means nothing. + +This is NOT the way to do it, unfortunately. Everything will be scaled: +linewidth, font sizes, etc. +Instead, you have to do something like + + /cm {UNIT mul} def % or bind def perhaps? + +where UNIT is the appropriate conversion factor. And then you have to write +"cm" after every measuring value :-( Thanks to Adobe who apparently didn't +realise that postscript brought printing from the typesetting industry to +the office, where people use ordinary rulers. That's not right. If the problem is that you want to think in millimeters instead of points, then you should refer to line weights and fonts and everything else in millimeters, right? If you want to measure in inches, then you say "72 72 scale" at the beginning, and everything now works in inches (or fractions thereof). Ordinary office rulers don't have anything to do with this, do they? If you adjust the scale factor appropriately, you can pretend to be working in any system you like. Glenn
esf00@uts.amdahl.com (Elliott S. Frank) (02/06/90)
Now that the discussion is tailing off .... Friday's mail brought a
catalog from Fidelity Graphics Arts, PO Box, 155, Minneapolis, MN 55440,
offering the "Graphics Arts Master [Calculator]" which will solve
"problems involving picas, points, feet, inches, centimeters,
millimeters and fractions. Now you can calculate measurements *exactly*
as they are typewritten without converting from inches to picas [...]"
The copy does not explain if it uses 72 or 72.27... points/inch.
Item CQ54698, $54.95 +s&h. Order yours now and own an authority to refute
the denizens of the net :-)
Scary, isn't it? The graphics professionals converting from X-acto knives
and transfer lettering to integrated imagesetting are going to run up
against the "it's *really* 72.27" issue while attempting to copyfit
against a deadline. Solutions, anyone?
------
--
Elliott Frank ...!{hplabs,ames,sun}!amdahl!esf00 (408) 746-6384
or ....!{bnrmtv,drivax,hoptoad}!amdahl!esf00
[the above opinions are strictly mine, if anyone's.]
[the above signature may or may not be repeated, depending upon some
inscrutable property of the mailer-of-the-week.]