I believe this is getting a bit offtopic. If people request, I'll turn
this thread into private email. I also try to answer shortly, also because
many things are subjective and everyone has one's own opinion about the
matter.
On Thu, 18 Oct 2001 Michel.Lavaud@univ-orleans.fr wrote:
>http://www.univ-orleans.fr/EXT/ASTEX/astex/doc/fr/nouv30a/html/nouv30a.htm
>which are quite readable I think ? In my implementation of TeX4ht ( software by
I don't actually think so, I can actually see the jagged edges. And if I
would print it, it would be much worse. For printing, antialiased graphics
makes the result *worse*. This is because printers can't do true grayscales
but have to dither it.
>The criterion "beautiful / not awful" is maybe important for artwork, but for
>mathematics, in my opinion, the criterion for displaying math on the web ought to
>be "exact". Formulas available as bitmaps cannot be modified and will always be
Sure, but in my opinion it should be *readable*. Why many people prefer
reading from paper instead of screen? Because the text on paper just looks
so much better. Even if it is equally well understandable on the screen,
the quality nevertheless matters.
>Formulas available as parts of pdf files, with symbols taken from vector fonts
>are displayed certainly more beautifully, but they can be displayed incorrectly
I believe this would be a bug either in the PDF file or in the PDF reader
software. Most probably a missing or bad font in the reader, or possibly a
broken font in the PDF creator.
It is fixed by fixing the PDF creator software or the reader.
>In short : with pdf and vector fonts, there is no way to guarantee that a
>formula, displayed correctly for somebody, will be displayed correctly for
I think it can be quaranteed by embedding the math font into the PDF file.
For example pdflatex does this for certain fonts.
>somebody else at some other time. Especially for Acrobat Reader, it is not free
>software and there is no way for the scientific community to control its quality.
Of course not. But xpdf and ghostscript can both read PDF files well.
>The necessity for antialiasing with pdf files comes from its limitation: you
You are right in a way. Both HTML and PDF try to be device independent, but
in a very different way. HTML is independent of the screen (or printer)
font, width and resolution for text, but bitmap pictures are very device
resolution dependent.
PDF is independent of display resolution, including images, but
unfortunately not screen/printer width or even height.
Given a good HTML viewer (haven't found one yet) I'd prefer more HTML than
PDF. This good HTML viewer would be fast, take little memory, support
antialiased fonts, support antialiased vector graphics (possibly as PDF or
PS) and be free.
--
| Tuukka Toivonen <tuukkat@ee.oulu.fi> [PGP public key
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| Studying information engineering at the University of Oulu
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