[softwarelist] Re: Selecting thin lines in OPW documents

In message <44E46291.1070602@xxxxxxxx> you wrote:

> David Pilling wrote:
> > Zero width is supposed to be understood as a special value and rendered 
> > as one pixel wide. Which is not so bad on screen at 90 dpi, but is 
> > likely to be invisible at 2400 dpi or whatever your printer does.
> > 
> > This also means you can't rely on the width being the same for layout 
> > purposes.
> 
> That's very useful to know. Then, presumably, I could experiment with 
> various different resolution settings in Acrobat Distiller to see the 
> effect on "line width" and determine the optimum line width for the 
> final copy.

That won't work.  The resolution setting in Distiller has for 99.9% of
real live PostScript file no influence on the output PDF file.  This value
sets the resolution of the PostScript interpreter inside Distiller
program but as the output is PDF, a vector format, objects line stroked
and filled paths are kepts as vector objects and you will end up with a
zero width line in PDF.

One of the only cases where resolution option in Distiller makes a difference
are PostScript files which query that resolution value in order to decide
the number and size of objects they are going to create (remember PostScript
is a language and can be used to really program such things).  Typically
for e.g. the number of bands used in gradients for pre-PostScript 3 printers.

But even then, any PostScript 3 Adobe kernel (like Distiller is using)
contains IdiomSets detecting this kind of resolution depending object
generation code for several known DTP applications and that gets translated
into real PostScript 3 gradients, so called smooth shadings.

Another case where resolution setting makes the difference are EPS files
which are teststrip placed beside the job to test the RIP or to know which
settings (screen, resolution, etc) were used.

Good advice : never use zero linewidth strokes on purpose and use tools
to detect & correct such things as soon as possible.

John.
-- 
John Tytgat, in his comfy chair at home                                 BASS
John.Tytgat@xxxxxxxx                             ARM powered, RISC OS driven

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