altman@socrates.ucsf.edu (John Altman) (05/30/91)
I have some figures done in MacDraw II (1.1) where it is important that several horizontal bars are aligned perfectly with the text above it -- the text represents a protein sequence, is in the Courier font (I needed a constant width font), and has one space between each letter. When preparing the document, I forgot that the default setting in version 1.1 is to use fractional font widths, so the MD file was prepared that way -- I don't think this turns out to be a problem if I use fractional widths on the Word end. I then group all of the text and bars together and paste them into a Word document, and things look fine on my SE at home. I then take the document to the lab and attempt to print it, but now the bars are no longer aligned with the text, and the Courier font comes out on the laserwriter looking something more like Monaco (I don't know if that is a laser font, but the letters are very, very plain). Not all of the text in the graphic shows up as Monaco-like. In addition, the graphic looks ok on the screen, but the hard copy is seriously out of alignment. I'm fairly certain that we have Courier installed on the laserwriter, so that is not the problem. Any ideas? Thanks in advance, John -- John Altman * altman@picasso.mmwb.ucsf.edu Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, S-926 * University of California, San Francisco * San Francisco, CA 94143 *
gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Don Gillies) (06/01/91)
You have encountered a serious problem with MacDraw II. My impression has always been that MacDraw II is written in an egocentric way -- it won't export PICT graphics with 300dpi precision. This is problem because MacDraw II was written before 300dpi PICT graphics were possible. You can see this for yourself. Take a MacDraw II graphic that has been aligned at 300dpi (4x resolution). Paste it into any other document (not just word 4.0, but canvas 2.1, for instance). The graphic has been rounded to 72 dpi. The alignment has been ruined. On the other hand, take a document from Canvas 2.1 and paste it into MacDraw II 1.1. It has correct alignment at 300dpi. Basically, MacDraw II does not create device-independent graphics for export. The graphics it creates print differently on postscript and on PICT devices. There are three solutions: (1) Do not use MacDraw II 1.1 (my favorite). Use something better, like Canvas 2.1. (2) Align all your MacDraw II 1.1 graphics at 4x resolution. (my old favorite) do not worry about how it looks at 1x resolution (in Word) realize that it will never print correctly on a quickdraw device. abandon Quickdraw printing. (3) Do all your printing from MacDraw II. (my least favorite) Don Gillies | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign gillies@cs.uiuc.edu | Digital Computer Lab, 1304 W. Springfield, Urbana IL --
johnsone@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (Erik A. Johnson) (06/01/91)
gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Don Gillies) writes: >You have encountered a serious problem with MacDraw II. My impression >has always been that MacDraw II is written in an egocentric way -- it >won't export PICT graphics with 300dpi precision. This is problem >because MacDraw II was written before 300dpi PICT graphics were >possible. > [etc] >Basically, MacDraw II does not create device-independent graphics for >export. The graphics it creates print differently on postscript and >on PICT devices. There are three solutions: > [etc] Would it be possible to write some sort of FKEY to get the precision- independent info (and change it into a 300dpi PICT) directly from MacDrawII? Erik A. Johnson, Graduate Student \ Internet: johnsone@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering \ University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign \ AmericaOnline: ErikAJ