Re: tlug: NTT JTeX: font problems (25k image attached)

[Matt Gushee <matt@example.com>]

Hello again--

Here's a little more on the font problem.

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> 
> >>>>> "Matt" == Matt Gushee <matt@example.com> writes:
> 
>     Matt> When I print out I get, well, "artifacts"--little black
>     Matt> rectangles or trapezoids on some of the kanji. The number of
>     Matt> them seems to vary according to the font size--e.g., 12
>     Matt> point has very few, while 10 point has more and 11 point is
>     Matt> terrible. At any given size, they appear on all instances of
>     Matt> the affected character.
> 
> This happens on both the screen output and on paper?
> If you get them on screen then try a screen capture (xwd, or xv's grab
> function), and send the GIF as a MIME attachment.

Sorry, I should have said something about that. Yes, both on screen and
on paper. I've attached a screen grab of gv, viewing a Postscript file
produced by dvipsk 5.58f. Actually, as I was setting up the image, I
noticed something that may be important: the appearance of the black
stuff seems to depend not on the original size as specified in the TeX
file, but on the display size. That is, if I change gv's magnification
factor, or zoom a portion of the screen, the artifacts increase or
decrease or change shape. You'll see this in my screen grab, which shows
the main window, which is almost clean at 1.00 magnification, and a
portion zoomed to x2, which looks horrible.

> Anyway, this is probably a problem in the rasterization.  Some
> versions of Ghostscript (I assume since you refer to the Mincho font
> you're using Ghostscript) 

Well, not exactly. I have a postscript printer, and the Wadalab fonts
seemed to offer the possibility of JTeX ---> Postscript output. I
followed the "TeXify the fonts" procedure from the Steve Turnbull guide.
So when I run dvips, TeXMakePK calls gsftopk to generate the fonts (I
guess!); as far as I can tell, Ghostscript per se isn't involved at all.
FWIW, though, I'm using Aladdin Ghostscript 5.01 (RPM binary package).

Actually, I think the ideal solution would be to just use the printer
fonts, BUT . . .  you might recall I'm the guy with the cheapo PS
printer that only handles RKSJ encoding. In spite of your good advice,
Steve, I never did get it to print Japanese plain text--it was looking
like I'd have to become a Postscript guru to make any progress--which is
why I bagged it and went ahead to JTeX, which was the main point anyway.

Anyhow, I suppose I could make a virtual font for RKSJ that would then
make the printer use its resident fonts--am I understanding my TeXnology
right? I have a couple of TeX books, so I can probably figure it out in
time for New Year's . . . New Year's 2000, that is <sardonic smirk>. If
anybody happens to know offhand how to do that, I'd be grateful for the
tips.

'til next time,
Matt Gushee
Somewhere in the frozen North