Non Proporcional fonts calculation

[Jim Asman]

--------------- Original Message ---------------
At 08:13A Mon Mar 12 2012, Henry Arredondo wrote:

> Hi, I'm using Arial size 10 on a report ($1b (s1p10v0s0b16602T)) is there a 
formula to calculate the spacing on a report when using non proportional 
> fonts?
> 

Arial is a proportional font and if it were fixed pitch you wouldn't be
asking the question.

To predict the printing width of a string of proportional characters is
not a trivial process. You start with a TFM(tagged font metric) file
from HP. It is purely binary collection of character widths, from which
with consider effort (in C language) you can write a program to extract
out the design width of each character.

Once you have the design width, you can then apply a mathematical formula
to predict the character width in dots for a given point size and printer
resolution.

BUT...

As the TFM files are organized in a master symbol list order, and a font
like Arial has 500+ characters, you have to extract out the widths for
the appropriate 256 characters and their order depending on the Symbol Set
in use.

Once you have that in a fp database you can step through the string and
accumulate the widths.

Alternatively, you might look into HP-GL/2 and the LO command.


Jim 
--
jlasman at telus.net                      Spectra Colour Services Ltd.
Jim Asman                              10221 144a Street            
Phone: (604)584-0977                   Surrey, BC  V3R 3P7   CANADA            
 Cell: (604)619-0977                   www.spectracolorservices.com