begin Bill Moseley quotation: > I've never really understood dpi under X. > > I start X by specifying 100 dpi. I'm not sure exactly what that does, but > it makes my fonts a better size. > > Here's a dumb question. What's the purpose of the different dpi fonts? > Does it allow you to use a higher resolution on a smaller screen but not > have tiny fonts? You can use it that way, but in theory it is to allow you to more closely match the actual dpi of a high-resolution display to a printed page. It has to do with the ratio of pixels (display metrics) to points (font metrics). 75 dpi means that X considers one inch to be equal to 75 pixels. So, since an inch is by definition equal to 72 points (on computers, at least -- in the world of traditional printing, it's slightly different), this means that a 72 point font should be about 75 pixels tall. If your display really is approximately 75 dpi, then a 72 point font will appear to be about one inch high on the screen (you can test this by holding a physical ruler up to your display). If your display is close to 100 dpi, then the same test will work with 100 dpi fonts. Craig
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