proportional font issues

[Jim Asman]

--------------- Original Message ---------------
At 10:52A Thu Nov 19 2009, Richard D. Williams wrote:

> When I set any font type, i.e. CG Times Font (Primary) and any size, it 
> seems to be impossible to get things lined up because it is proportional.
> 
> Is there any way to stop this so it is easier to use these fonts on forms?

1. Look at the LO(Label Origin) command in HP-GL/2 or...

2. Calculate the printing width of the text and then position the
   text appropriately. This is how a windows driver does it. The
   character widths need to be extracted from a TFM file which is
   a major operation.

If you are left justifying text, then a simple positioning code will take
care of it. If you want to right justify a numeric field, you will have
to calculate the printing width and position accordingly. OR, if you
can be assured the there will never be a negative number, you can set
the HMI(Horizontal Motion Index) whereby, the space and the numerals both
have the same width, and you can then treat the field as though it is
fixed pitch. See the article that I wrote For the FP Cookbook back in
1992, and is reproduced in the current FP manual.


Jim 
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