[OS X TeX] problem using gs 6.52 with teTeX

[Gerben Wierda]

>> Note: TeX produces device independent output (dvi) it is one of it's
>> strength. pdfTeX bypasses that by producing device-oriented output
>> directly. By using PDF as the output device a lot of
>> device-independence  (read: vector formats for fonts) returns but it
>> partly destroys TeX's  purpose because that output is somewhat inferior
>> since the best results  for a particular device always remains using a
>> dvi-to-dvice program with  only bitmapped fonts (the PDF is good enough
>> for screen and ordinary  print, though).
>>
>> A good solution would be to have two processes for creating output
>> (just  like TeXview.app on the NeXT had): a "dvips+gs" using printer
>> resolution  for print output and a "dvips -Ppdf + gs" (or the
>> appropriate altpdftex  commands) for printer output.
>>
>> A frontend could handle that by rerunning altpdftex (I don't think it
>> is  possible to influence pdfTeX that way at this moment) with a
>> different  setting when printing to a different pdf file and printing
>> that file.
>>
>> G
>>
> Thank you for the tip about using dvips -Ppdf, it does work for me!
> Still, for my own understanding (and may be other people's as well...), 
> how
> come I get a different result by running:
>    dvips some.dvi -o => some.ps => ps2pdf some.ps => some.pdf
> and
>    dvips -Ppdf some.dvi -o => some.ps => ps2pdf some.ps => some.pdf
> (in both cases I use my new version of gs/ps2pdf). Does dvips rely on 
> any
> gs-related settings in the first case and not in the second? Also if 
> texshop
> uses the second approach, then why does it display garbage whereas dvips
> -Ppdf gives a normal result?

This is what I tried to explain above. With -Ppdf, dvips uses a 
different mapping for fonts. It uses type1 fonts where it has normal teX 
(metafont) fonts available. When it uses metafont fonts, it includes 
bitmaps at the resolution set on your system (normally 600dpi). These 
are not 'anti-aliased' (dithered at the edges) and therefore they look 
ugly on screen. But they look best on paper (at 600dpi).

The difference between -Ppdf and not is thus that it uses type 1 
versions of available metafont fonts. These look slightly worse when 
printing, normally, because they are resolution independent and thus 
less optimized for actual printing.

All of this has absolutely *nothing* to do with gs.

The official teTeX way of handling this is doing a lot of unix stuff and 
runnig some unix scripts to make using the type1 metafont variants the 
default. But that would disable returning in an easy way to maximum 
print quality, so this is why I do not ship it that way. Moving from no 
type1-variants to type1-variants is simple (-Ppdf) but the other way 
around is impossible from teh command line without changing your setup.

Since altpdftex is called by TeXShop when it wants the tex+dvips+gs 
route, it would be best that you could give it free format arguments. 
you could then add --dviopts "-Ppdf" to the calling of altpdftex. 
Richard Koch has promised to look at that for a next release.

pdfTeX on the other hand assumes it makes PDF anyway, and is therefore 
configured to use as many sclable type1 versions as it can find.

G


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