[OS X TeX] Line thickness in TeXShop preview (and Preview.app) on Tiger

[William F. Adams]

On May 14, 2005, at 9:11 AM, William F. Adams wrote:

> This is a function of how TeX draws lines. Instead of using a 
> PostScript ``moveto'' and ``stroke'' operator, it defines a 
> rectangular region and fills it.

I've just learned that this has changed for pdftex and dvipdfm --- 
since 1999 or thereafter both have a configurable option to replace 
rectangles w/ lines. The standard here is for lines of 1bp or smaller 
to be rendered w/ stroked lines.

> This means that it's subject to rounding errors as you noted, but this 
> can be ameliorated by anti-aliasing and other rendering settings.
>
> In the past, I recall such dropping out completely quite often at 
> lower magnifications, so it seems that Apple has set things so that 
> they always render, resulting in the results you see.

Another thing to check for is to see if you're stacking one line on top 
of another --- when antialasing this can result in a darker image.

Have you compared the previewing to Adobe Acrobat w/ ``Smooth line 
art'' enabled?

William

-- 
William Adams, publishing specialist
voice - 717-731-6707 | Fax - 717-731-6708
www.atlis.com

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