Re: 100dpi vs 75dpi
On Wed, 2002-04-10 at 09:51, Bill Moseley wrote:
> At 09:09 AM 4/10/2002 -0700, Craig Dickson wrote:
> >begin Thomas Peri quotation:
> >
> >> I seem to be using 100dpi fonts. This wouldn't bother me, but since
> >> many programs seem to assume 75dpi, lots of elements like buttons and
> >> things (especially in mozilla) are sized too small, and the text gets
> >> clipped. How can I use 75dpi fonts instead?
> >
> >If any program assumes 75 dpi, it's ineptly written garbage and you ought
> >to toss it out.
> >
> >Mozilla does not assume 75 dpi; I use it with 100 dpi fonts all the time.
>
> I've never really understood dpi under X.
There is a lot of confusion about this!.
> I start X by specifying 100 dpi. I'm not sure exactly what that does, but
> it makes my fonts a better size.
That is a side effect and not the intended result. If you want smaller
fonts, you should specify them in your preferences. If the defaults are
too big, the developers should give better defaults.
> 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?
There are three things involved: the size of your physical screen, the
number of pixels on the screen, and the ratio between the two. Take my
monitor as an example. It has a screen which is 21.3" diagonally, or
17.0" wide and 12.8" tall. This is the size, in inches.
The screen has 1600 pixels horizontally and 1200 pixels vertically.
This is ALSO the size, in pixels. This is not the resolution, although
it is commonly called that.
The screen has 1600 pixels across 17.0 inches, so it has 94 pixels -- or
dots -- per inch: 94dpi. This is the resolution.
The X Windows System uses the resolution to draw text on the screen. A
program might request the letter A 18 points (0.25 inches) tall. The X
server knows that my screen has 94 pixels per inch, so it must draw the
letter A 0.25*94 = 24 pixels tall.
In the bad old days, all we had were bitmap fonts. If you had 75dpi
fonts and a 94dpi screen, the X server would draw an 18-point character
in 18 pixels which is actually only 13.7 points. Now, most people use
scalable fonts, so the X server can accurately draw text on screens of
any resolution.
The bottom line is this: text sizes should not change when you change
screen sizes. An 18-point character should always be 0.25 inches tall
on any properly configured system.
> I have a 19" CRT. At 1024 resolution I have 72dpi horz. So I know images
> that someone created at 72dpi look about the same on my monitor as they did
> when they were created. On linux I run at 1152 horz so my dpi is more like
> 81.
It should still look the same, if your system is configured correctly.
-jwb
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
Reply to: