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Re: Printing Mathematica Notebooks and WYSIWYG

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  • Subject: [mg123799] Re: Printing Mathematica Notebooks and WYSIWYG
  • From: Armand Tamzarian <mike.honeychurch at gmail.com>
  • Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 03:01:13 -0500 (EST)
  • Delivered-to: l-mathgroup@mail-archive0.wolfram.com
  • References: <201112150952.EAA22827@smc.vnet.net> <jcf7t8$6oc$1@smc.vnet.net>

On Dec 19, 11:25 pm, David Reiss <dbre... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 17, 2:48 am, Armand Tamzarian <mike.honeychu... at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Dec 16, 9:52 pm, Gregory Lypny <gregory.ly... at videotron.ca> wrote:
>
> > > Hi Murray,
>
> > > Thank you for responding.  Not sure how to do that.  When I call up the
> > > stylesheet for a notebook, the styles apparently pertain to the working
> > > environment.  There does not seem to be any option to see the styles for
> > > printout.  A notebook's default font for text cells is Times 12-point
> > > in the working environment.  If I switch to the printout environment,
> > > the text cell font is Times 13.5 point, but that has no effect on
> > > printing, where it appears to print as 9 or 10 point.  I also opened the
> > > Option Inspector and searched for options with the word print, but
> > > nothing resembles one that would cause Mathematica to print in the
> > > apparent font size.
>
> > > Regards,
>
> > > Gregory
>
> > > On Thu, Dec 15, 2011, at 6:50 AM, Murray Eisenberg wrote:
> > > > The Printout environment is different from the viewing environments
>
> > > (Working, Presentation,...). You may want to edit the style sheet and
> > > change the settings for the Printout environment there to suit your
> > > needs.
>
> > For some reason the default magnification for the "Printout" style is
> > 0.72. Therefore a 12 point font would look like a 9 point font when
> > printed.
>
> > To change the Printout style you could edit the stylesheet and create
> > a new input cell and select the cell bracket and then go Cell > Show
> > Expression from the menu and paste in this:
>
> > Cell[StyleData[All, "Printout"],
> >  Magnification->1]
>
> > then do Cell > Show Expression again.
>
> > Alternatively you could set the print magnification locally in your
> > notebook with this:
>
> > SetOptions[EvaluationNotebook[],
> >  StyleDefinitions ->
> >   Notebook[{Cell[StyleData[StyleDefinitions -> "Default.nb"]],
> >     Cell[StyleData[All, "Printout"], Magnification -> 1]}]]
>
> > Mike
>
> I have always been puzzled by this design choice by WRI. If one sets a
> font size to be 12 point, it should be designed to print as 12 point.
> Of course, these days, what appears on a screen (as compared to print)
> is all over the map because the dot pitches of screens are all over
> the map.  Because of this, wisywig is no longer true wisywig when
> going from screen to print.  But, so long as one specifies a print
> terminology such as "12 point" for a font (as opposed to "large",
> "small", etc, which are subject to interpretation by a rendering
> engine for a particular device), then 12 point should *print* as 12
> point in my opinion.


I couldn't agree more.


>
> Note that the magnification for the Printout environment is 0.72 in
> default.nb while it is 0.8 in Core.nb (so Default.nb overrides Core.nb
> due to the inheritance hierarchy).  Also note that the
> PrintoutEnviornment value for the font size in the "Text" style for
> Default.nb is 13.5.  So what one sees on the screen when in a the
> printout environment in a Text cell is 13.5 * 0.72 = 9.72 points as it
> appears at the dot pitch of your screen. The 13.5 point size for Text
> cells does not apply for, for example, the Book/Textbook stylesheet.
>
> Okay, so what can we learn from this? I am not sure if there is a
> ptolemaic system of backward compatibility adjustments going on here
> in the stylesheets or whether there is a clear, but complex design
> model.  it would be nice to see the clear explanation.


As I wrote to someone who emailed me today, it beggars belief that
this could be so complex if Mathematica is genuinely intended to be a useful
tool for making print ready documents -- or even a useful tool for
print, period.


>
> By the way, I generally keep things set up so that, when I print, it
> does not automatically use the Printout environment, but rather it
> uses the Working environment...


I'd differ here. I think there are distinct advantages in having two
environments. It is just the complexities associated with setting up a
true print style that are frustrating.

Mike




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