#The Missing Letter
15 messages in this thread
I was making a banner with PPage and instead of getting the letter W, I got
an square box outline where the letter would have been. All the other
letters can out fine. I tried to print a page with just the missing letter
but no go, still got that outline box. Any clues? – Joe Maulucci
Joe
I don't know what G-D's response will be to your problem, but I do know
that PPage sometimes messes up with tiled output. I tried to do a tiled
(2-pages) notice which PPage messed up totally … it missed out a lot of
the text on both halves, and put in a couple of boxes/lines which were not
in my original … also some of the graphics were misplaced.
Were you printing to a PostScript printer or using a dot-matrix printer?
Mike (from the UK)
Mike
I was printing to a HP PaintJET, this had happened before when I tried to
output at a scale of 200 by 200. I ended up changing fonts and the whole
thing printed.
– Joe Maulucci
Joe,
You see those boxes instead of characters when you're low on chip mem too.
Malcolm
Mike,
We have recently become aware of a tiling printing problem in PPage 3.0.
The problem occurs when you try printing AUTOTILE to a PostScript printer
if you have altered the SCALE of the page.
Is this what you were attempting when you ran into the problem?
Also, where EPS files included in the layout?
Thanks
Philip Laitar
Supervisor
Yes, I believe I _was_ scaling the page (although, because it was so very
simple I didn't bother saving it, so can't check) … but there were no EPS
files included.
Mike (from the UK)
Thanks,
The problem with EPS files when scaling is that they tend to shift within
the bonding box they are placed in. This will `crop' the image (to a point
where it may not appear at all). This can be corrected by finding the
amount of the offset and entering this value in the offset requesters under
alter active box.
Philip Laitar
Superviosr
Just to stick my two cents in here. Autotile failed to work for me on a
20" X 20" page in postscript mode. When I switched to dotmatrix mode the
file printed OK.
…….. Paul McCarthy – Whapping! – from New York City!
Paul,
What did happen when scaling to PostScript?
Philip Laitar
Supervisor
What I was doing was tiling and it was a while ago. If I recall only parts
of the file printed and some blank pages popped out also. When I get a
chance I'll try it again and let you know what happens. I don't really use
or need the feature right now. I was just fooling with it late one night.
(which is why it's fuzzy in my mind right now)
…….. Paul McCarthy – Whapping! – from New York City!
Joe:
Some fonts will not scale above a certain point size. And, yes, it can
occur with just a few charachters at that size. A larger point size would
render even fewer charachters.
Michael
…..on AutoPilot
Thanks Michael… To bad there was no way of knowing in advance of printing
that the thing would not come out.
– Joe Maulucci
Joe,
It sounds like you are experiencing low CHIP RAM. The character W requires
more memory to render then other characters. If you are on the boarderline
for memory, it is possible that such letters won't render for printing (and
others will).
From one of the messages, it sounds as you have already found the best
workaround. Using a smaller point size and increasing the scale size.
This font size problem occurs in dot-matrix or pref. printing and not in
post script.
You could try increasing the available chip memory by selecting from the
PPAGE Pref menu: Black & White, Interlace off, and WorkBench off. Also,
shut down other programs (including back ground routines such as virusX).
Philip Laitar
Supervisor
Philip,
I am running with 2MB of CHIP and 10MB of fast, printing in color to a HP
Paintjet. Yeah, and expensive way of making banners, but I don't make them
that often.
I didn't try using a smaller point size and increasing the scale size. I
did just change font type and it printed no problem.
So,I gather that some fonts need lots of CHIP RAM to print out to a large
point scale. Are you also saying that PPage scales pages and fonts
differently? To make large posters is it then better to use small point
sizes and scale to a larger size as opposed to using a larger point size
and scaling with a lower scale ratio?
– Joe Maulucci
Joe,
Ultimately, the best way to print a poster (in my opinion) is to create the
page size you want the finished item to be and use point sizes that will
look good on the finished product.
However, because of memory limitation you may need to scale up the page
size, because the smaller point size will be rendered in memory first, then
the whole image is scaled. If using CGFONTS, I don't think there would be
any benifit to creating a page size larger than your finished product and
having PPage scale it down.
And you are correct in assuming that different fonts at the same point size
require different amounts of memory.
Philip Laitar
Supervisor