Re: Bug in ExportString?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg87379] Re: Bug in ExportString?
- From: "Fred Klingener" <gigabitbucket at gmail.com>
- Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2008 05:53:59 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <ftfeeg$bqh$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Reply-to: "Fred Klingener" <gigabitbucket at gmail.com>
"P_ter" <petervansummeren at gmail.com> wrote in message news:ftfeeg$bqh$1 at smc.vnet.net... >I did not formulate a good question about: > ImportString[ExportString[" ", "PDF"], "PDF"] > My point is that this gives an image, while > ImportString[ExportString["t", "PDF"], "PDF"] > gives with Inputform a polygon. > I think a space is also text (" "). It has an ASCII place. So, there > should be no difference in structure with the letter t. Here's my take: Doing first img = First@ImportString[ExportString[" ", "PDF"], "PDF"] and looking at img//InputForm shows img to be a Graphics with no displayed object but an ImageSize of {6, 12} (presumably printer's points). You can convince yourself of this by looking at: Framed[img] Compare this to imgM = First[ImportString[ExportString["M", "PDF"], "PDF"]] and imgM//InputForm shows a Graphics[] of the same size with a Polygon specification to represent the image of the character. So the form offers the prospect of doing primitive composition with something like imgList = (First@First[ImportString[ExportString[#, "PDF"], "PDF"]]) & /@ Characters["Mathematica"]; Graphics[Table[Translate[imgList[[i]], {6 (i - 1), 0}], {i, Length[imgList]}]] The uniform Translate inside a Table seems to work well enough for monospaced fonts (and you can probably obfuscate the code and otherwise show off with the corresponding Nest construct), and a separate rendering of each character would seem to be a useful approach if you're on your way to mapping text onto a curved surface. The "PDF" I/O form evidently uses long straight lines where possible in its rendering of many popular fonts. These lines won't map properly onto a curved surface, so they'll have to be filled in with interpolated points before transformation. So the conclusions seem to be that the idiom produces consistent results with a variety of characters, but, because the returned images are the same size, compositions or typesetting probably won't look right unless you use monospaced fonts or your Translate values come . Hth, Fred Klingener