Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Path: utzoo!utgpu!trigraph!bruce
From: bruce@trigraph.uucp (Bruce Freeman)
Subject: Re: ruler.ps - an inch/point ruler of your very own
Message-ID: <1990Jan14.180821.18711@trigraph.uucp>
Reply-To: bruce@trigraph.UUCP (Bruce Freeman)
Organization: Trigraph Inc., Toronto, Canada
References: <21772@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Date: Sun, 14 Jan 90 18:08:21 GMT

The great thing about points is that there are so many of them to the inch.
PostScript has decided that there are exactly 72 to the inch but the industry
standard is generally that there are 72.3 points to the inch. As a typesetting
company this causes us great fun since we have both Autologic typesetters that
use 72.3 points to the inch and Compugraphic PostScript typesetters that use
72 points to the inch. We have to use two different point rulers depending on
where the output is from. It is even more fun when a publisher says I thought
I told you to make this 35 picas 6 points not 35 picas 8 points (actually at
this distance the discrepancy is only 0.02" but you get the idea).

The other interesting thing about point rulers is that is impossible to get
nice looking ones with fine gradations off a digital typesetter. Since digital
typesetters must round to the nearest dot you either get uneven spacing between
lines or even spacing with uneven thickness of rules. Either way it looks bad
to the eye. We had to give up on half point spacing for our PostScript point
ruler. The new Autologic typesetters being digital can't do them either but
our APS 5C being an analog typesetter can knock off fine evenly spaced rules
any time. Just shows there are some things the old generation can still do
better than the new.

Just some of those things that makes typesetting so interesting!
-- 
Bruce Freeman	Trigraph Inc., Toronto, Canada		utzoo!trigraph!bruce
