PC Hardware A Beginner’s Guide

(^410) PC Hardware: A Beginner’s Guide
there are 72 points (abbreviated as pts) to an inch. Figure 17-8 shows a comparison of dif-
ferent point sizes for the Times New Roman font.
Fonts fall into one of two classifications:

Bitmapped A bitmapped font forms its characters from patterns of dots and
specifies the pattern used for each letter, number, and special character for a
particular typeface (Times Roman, Courier, etc.), print style (bold, italic, etc.),
and type size (10 pts, 12 pts, etc.). Bitmapped fonts are stored as a file that
contains the predefined patterns of a font for particular point sizes. If more
point sizes are added to the bit-mapped font, more disk space is needed to
store the character formats.
 Scalable Scalable fonts are generated from a base font as required. Whenever
a certain point size of a character is needed, it is generated from a base font, which
outlines the basic font typeface and design and contains a mathematical formula
that is used to generate the character in the requested point size. TrueType and
PostScript fonts are scalable fonts.
Typewriters, which of course could only use one font at a time, could also use only
one font size at a time, typically either 10 or 12 points. These two font sizes remain the de-
faults for most fonts, although it is software and not the printer that now usually controls
the font size to be printed.
Daisy wheel and line printers have only one print size available, but dot matrix print-
ers commonly support two print sizes for each of their fonts. Print size is typically not a
problem for laser printers and inkjet printers, but some inkjets do struggle a bit when the
font size exceeds 300 points. You could change a daisy wheel printer’s font and type size
by changing the daisy wheel, but in one document, unless you were very fast, you were
stuck with the font and type size on the installed wheel.
Figure 17-7. Common print styles used to modify text