600 pt G prints in Quark--not InDesign

[Insight@adobeforums.com]

I want to print a 600 pt. semibold Helvetica G centered on a white 11 x 8 1/2 page. The G is a solid PMS 201. Using ID the page won't print on an Epson Color 980. Nothing happens at all. I don't even get a blank page. If I try a 200 pt. G, it prints.

If I layout the same, 600 pt. G in Quark 4, it prints. Any explanation??

Vaughn

[Steve_Werner@adobeforums.com]

For what it's worth, I just easily printed a 600 pt. Helvetica Bold G centered on an InDesign CS 8-1/2 x 11 page on my Epson C84 printer. So I don't think it's InDesign. But I don't have your printer...I suspect the answer must lie there.

[Bob_Levine]

So do I but as a workaround, try converting it outlines. I doubt at 600
points you'll have much in the way of loss of quality.

Bob

[Guy_Smiley@adobeforums.com]

Possible workaround: Export a PDF and print it from Acrobat.

[Gabriel_Ayala@adobeforums.com]

I doubt at 600 points you'll have much in the way of loss of quality.




It's not noticeable if there is any loss of quality because I just did some stickers with Copperplate Gothic at only 370pt converted to outlines. I thought the output looked perfect and so did the client. They were 100% satisfied with the quality.

I also think this a problem with your printer so I would try printing from PDF if the outlines suggestion doesn't work.

It converting to outlines does not work, keep the font as an outline anyway when you print to PDF just to make sure it does work.

[Greg_Gaspard@adobeforums.com]

The only time you'll see a loss in quality from converting to outlines is when you've got a font with delicate serifs or swashes set at a size where hinting comes into play (usually >24 pt.). 370 pt? Absolutely no problem. 8 pt? There's yer problem.

[Gabriel_Ayala@adobeforums.com]

So what you are saying is as a rule of thumb, just about anything 24pt. and under requires experimentation?

Sounds good to me.

[Dave_Saunders@adobeforums.com]

We had a long discussion about this within the last two years. The impact of outline is still visible on quite large text, even at 2400 dpi. 24 point is nowhere near the limit.

Consider that a 24 point capital I in Helvetica Medium is 2.328 points wide. At 2400 dpi, that means that the number of imagesetter dots used by that letter is 77.6 -- except that the imagesetter can't do fractional dots. And the conversion to outlines can have a one dot impact on either side of the I, so a 2400 dpi capital I in Helvetica Medium might be anything from 75 to 80 dots wide (depending on how the rounding worked out). So, we're looking at a potential variation of 5 in 75 with is pushing 7%. And that's very visible to the discerning eye.

You've got to be up around 100 points before the variation is negligible at 2400 dpi, around 200 points at 1200 dpi.

Dave

[Greg_Gaspard@adobeforums.com]

Dave,

I stand corrected. I was going by no formula, just a visual rule of thumb I've gone by for years. By your calculations, 24 pt might not make a huge visual difference at 300 ppi, but at 2400, it'd still impact. (Can you even buy a 300 ppi printer anymore?)

[Dave_Saunders@adobeforums.com]

Other way around. The impact of a 1 pixel error at 300 ppi is 8 times the size of a 1 pixel error at 2400 ppi.

The main problem is that the conversion to outlines loses the hinting. Hinting is not likely to have much impact on a sans-serif capital I. I just picked that because it's easy to measure the width, but it can have a 1 pixel impact on either side of any stroke and that's after rounding decisions could also have an impact. The exact numbers don't matter, but the type just has to be a lot larger than most people realize to eliminate visual differences.

Dave

[Thomas_Phinney@adobeforums.com]

The hinting is lost, which means that the same letter (or two different letters with identical-thickness strokes) may have its stroke thicknesses round differently from one occurrence to the next. However, contrary to what has been suggested, this will make at most a one-pixel difference.

Additionally, the rounding heuristics are different. Fonts at small to middling sizes in PostScript get a special fill algorithm that only turns on pixels if the center of the pixel is within the outline. Graphics (and large enough fonts) get an algorithm that turns on pixels if ANY PART of the pixel is within the outline.

The combination of these two effects will result in fonts converted to outlines having slight variances from one glyph to the next, and also in strokes generally being thicker on average--especially curves and diagonals. This latter effect does not hold true at all sizes, but is generally true at normal text sizes, even at 2400 dpi. Whether this is visible, and how visible, depends on the particular font, size, resolution, and especially the visual acuity of the reader.

Cheers,

T

Thomas Phinney
Program Mgr.
Fonts & Core Technologies
Adobe Systems