Bug#131336: more information
Matt Swift <swift@alum.mit.edu> writes:
> I believe I responded to this question on 29 June 2003 by sending a
> tarball with two X-windows screen dumps. I can download the tarball
> today by visiting
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi/testdvi.tgz?bug=131336&msg=12&att=1
Oops, I didn't see this followup until now ...
> As I remarked, this difference may not be noticeable with another
> Metafont mode. At the moment I do not recall exactly why "ricoh" is a
> better mode choice than "cx" (I think the default) for XDvi PK fonts,
> but if "cx" looks as bad as the T1 does on my system, then neither is
> acceptable.
Interesting. I always recommend using a 600 dpi mode since all
modes < 600 dpi really do give suboptimal results with
anti-aliasing, with the ratio of unshrunken bits to dots on the
screen being too small. Also, 600dpi modes give you more shrink
steps to choose from. (For this very reason, setting the metafont
mode for xdvi has been removed from current texconfig, and the
default resolution is set to 600dpi). These days, additional PK
fonts shouldn't be an issue, especially if you're using t1lib.
With 22.40y1, which uses the same t1lib version as 22.40v, the
results look OK at 600dpi. It looks like the results with the
300dpi ricoh mode are the result of suboptimal hinting. The
hinting code has changed in current t1lib (which is used by
xdvik > 22.7x), but unfortunately the new code gives an even
*worse* result at 600dpi; the horizontal bar of the `e' is only
1 pixel wide:
http://xdvi.sourceforge.net/600dpi.gif
Only 1200dpi (e.g. xdvi -mfmode lexmarkr:1200) gives a
good result:
http://xdvi.sourceforge.net/1200dpi.gif
I'll write a bug report to Rainer Menzner, the t1lib author ...
Best,
Stefan
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