Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Richard Heck]

On 08/30/2013 11:16 PM, Ken Springer wrote:


AFAIK, PostScript is a printer language, where a PDF is supposed to be 
a cross platform, software independent document format.  And the web 
has nothing to do with it.


PostScript is an interpreted programming language, largely intended, of 
course, for page description. It runs, in principle, on anything, and 
there are interpreters for lots of platforms and different kinds of 
devices. PDF incorporates a subset of PostScript and adds font 
embedding. The biggest difference is that PDFs are structured by page, 
so that you could download one page and be able to display it. To 
display a single page of a PostScript file, by contrast, you have to 
have everything before it. That made PostScript unsuitable for the web, 
and PDF was, to a large extent, created to solve that problem.


On the other hand, PDF is not really as cross-platform as it claims to 
be. A single PDF can look very different on different devices, unless 
you make sure to embed all the fonts. This is one place that DVI has a 
significant advantage.


Richard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format#Technical_foundations

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Richard Heck]

On 08/30/2013 11:16 PM, Ken Springer wrote:


AFAIK, PostScript is a printer language, where a PDF is supposed to be 
a cross platform, software independent document format.  And the web 
has nothing to do with it.


PostScript is an interpreted programming language, largely intended, of 
course, for page description. It runs, in principle, on anything, and 
there are interpreters for lots of platforms and different kinds of 
devices. PDF incorporates a subset of PostScript and adds font 
embedding. The biggest difference is that PDFs are structured by page, 
so that you could download one page and be able to display it. To 
display a single page of a PostScript file, by contrast, you have to 
have everything before it. That made PostScript unsuitable for the web, 
and PDF was, to a large extent, created to solve that problem.


On the other hand, PDF is not really as cross-platform as it claims to 
be. A single PDF can look very different on different devices, unless 
you make sure to embed all the fonts. This is one place that DVI has a 
significant advantage.


Richard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format#Technical_foundations

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Richard Heck]

On 08/30/2013 11:16 PM, Ken Springer wrote:


AFAIK, PostScript is a printer language, where a PDF is supposed to be 
a cross platform, software independent document format.  And the web 
has nothing to do with it.


PostScript is an interpreted programming language, largely intended, of 
course, for page description. It runs, in principle, on anything, and 
there are interpreters for lots of platforms and different kinds of 
devices. PDF incorporates a subset of PostScript and adds font 
embedding. The biggest difference is that PDFs are structured by page, 
so that you could download one page and be able to display it. To 
display a single page of a PostScript file, by contrast, you have to 
have everything before it. That made PostScript unsuitable for the web, 
and PDF was, to a large extent, created to solve that problem.


On the other hand, PDF is not really as cross-platform as it claims to 
be. A single PDF can look very different on different devices, unless 
you make sure to embed all the fonts. This is one place that DVI has a 
significant advantage.


Richard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format#Technical_foundations

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Stephen George]

On 30/08/2013 1:49 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 8:08 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

When doing stochastic screening, the ideal is to screen at the same 
dpi as the final printing device.  Next best is an even multiple.  
I.E. screen at 300 dpi for printing on a 600 dpi printer.  You also 
have to decide on the finished physical size of the graphic before you 
start.


I used to use the regular graphic in all the drafts.  When I was 
satisfied with everything, then I applied the stochastic screen.



I just searched Inscape+stochastic screening and got a bunch of
useless stuff including an anti-Obama site (what, how'd Google do
that?). Then I did the same thing for LaTeX, nothing ontopic for us.
Same thing with Computer monitors. One site said most inkjet printers
use stochastic screening.


I suspect all home printers and laser printers now have some kind of 
stochastic screening routines in their printer drivers.  But, I've not 
tested the idea.




An interesting discussion, but a question about Stochastic screening 
from someone who has only just heard of it.


Is this screening  something done at print driver level, and not a 
screen applied to the graphic itself prior to importing? ... therefore 
the same pdf file could be printed both with and without stochastic 
screening if the printer/driver support it?


Steve

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Richard Heck]

On 08/29/2013 08:38 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 1:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:
Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual 
quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality 
of the

printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


So, the typesetting advantages of LyX/LaTeX is retained in a PDF 
document?  That's great, since OS X has included native PDF export 
from the print dialog for some time.


You don't need to use anything like that. LyX exports directly to PDF 
(which, if I remember correctly, is really a variety of PostScript, 
tuned for the web).


Richard

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Richard Heck]

On 08/29/2013 08:41 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 8:19 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springersnowsh...@q.com  wrote:
Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the 
actual quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the 
quality of the

printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output. This
is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector fonts.


Would you have a guess as to the minimum resolution a printer would 
have to have that would show the difference in the quality of the 
final print?  I'm thinking something the average computer user would 
possibly own, as opposed to a professional printing shop.


No, I don't know enough about this, and obviously not as much as you. 
But even most home laser printers nowadays have enormous resolution. The 
pages I printed myself to test looked really good to my eyes.


Richard

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Marcus Glöder]

Hello Ken,

A LyX document is not printed. From a LyX document you generated first a 
LaTeX document and then from the LaTeX document a PDF document. The PDF 
document is printed.


Of course, the quality of the printout depends on the output device. 
There is a tiny difference between a DeskJet 500 [1] and a Heidelberg 
printing machine [2]. ;-)


Best regards
Marcus

[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Deskjet

[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidelberger_Druckmaschinen

--
PMs: m.gloe...@gmx.de

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/30/13 12:23 AM, Stephen George wrote:

On 30/08/2013 1:49 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 8:08 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

When doing stochastic screening, the ideal is to screen at the same
dpi as the final printing device.  Next best is an even multiple.
I.E. screen at 300 dpi for printing on a 600 dpi printer.  You also
have to decide on the finished physical size of the graphic before you
start.

I used to use the regular graphic in all the drafts.  When I was
satisfied with everything, then I applied the stochastic screen.


I just searched Inscape+stochastic screening and got a bunch of
useless stuff including an anti-Obama site (what, how'd Google do
that?). Then I did the same thing for LaTeX, nothing ontopic for us.
Same thing with Computer monitors. One site said most inkjet printers
use stochastic screening.


I suspect all home printers and laser printers now have some kind of
stochastic screening routines in their printer drivers.  But, I've not
tested the idea.



An interesting discussion, but a question about Stochastic screening
from someone who has only just heard of it.

Is this screening  something done at print driver level, and not a
screen applied to the graphic itself prior to importing? ... therefore
the same pdf file could be printed both with and without stochastic
screening if the printer/driver support it?


When I started with stochastic screening, printer drivers didn't have 
that ability.  To write my reply, I had to do a bit of research, it's 
amazing how much you forget when you don't work with things for a long 
time.  I found out that stochastic screening is also called frequency 
modulated screening, and error diffusion screening.  After I started 
using stochastic screening on the image itself, HP started having error 
diffusion features of printing.


I never applied the screening to the entire document, only to images. 
Then I placed the screened image into the document, and printed.


Personally, I doubt that doing the screening to text is even worth the 
effort.


My guess would be you could do either or both.  But I know there are 
expensive screening software out there, or so it seemed with just a 10 
minute investigation.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/30/13 8:25 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 08:41 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 8:19 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springersnowsh...@q.com  wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the
actual quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the
quality of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output. This
is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector fonts.


Would you have a guess as to the minimum resolution a printer would
have to have that would show the difference in the quality of the
final print?  I'm thinking something the average computer user would
possibly own, as opposed to a professional printing shop.


No, I don't know enough about this, and obviously not as much as you.
But even most home laser printers nowadays have enormous resolution. The
pages I printed myself to test looked really good to my eyes.


Admittedly, I've not had the time nor resources (meaning software) to 
test how things work today.  I was looking for free stochastic screening 
software when I found the expensive stuff.


But this has got me to wondering if the end result may end up being 
likened to the output of word processing software compared to 
typesetting software.  Maybe you won't notice the difference until you 
have them side by side.


This is something I won't be able to pursue at my end for at least two 
months.  Just no time.  :-(



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/30/13 8:22 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 08:38 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 1:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual
quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality
of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


So, the typesetting advantages of LyX/LaTeX is retained in a PDF
document?  That's great, since OS X has included native PDF export
from the print dialog for some time.


You don't need to use anything like that. LyX exports directly to PDF
(which, if I remember correctly, is really a variety of PostScript,
tuned for the web).


This is good to know about exporting to PDF.

AFAIK, PostScript is a printer language, where a PDF is supposed to be a 
cross platform, software independent document format.  And the web has 
nothing to do with it.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Stephen George]

On 30/08/2013 1:49 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 8:08 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

When doing stochastic screening, the ideal is to screen at the same 
dpi as the final printing device.  Next best is an even multiple.  
I.E. screen at 300 dpi for printing on a 600 dpi printer.  You also 
have to decide on the finished physical size of the graphic before you 
start.


I used to use the regular graphic in all the drafts.  When I was 
satisfied with everything, then I applied the stochastic screen.



I just searched Inscape+stochastic screening and got a bunch of
useless stuff including an anti-Obama site (what, how'd Google do
that?). Then I did the same thing for LaTeX, nothing ontopic for us.
Same thing with Computer monitors. One site said most inkjet printers
use stochastic screening.


I suspect all home printers and laser printers now have some kind of 
stochastic screening routines in their printer drivers.  But, I've not 
tested the idea.




An interesting discussion, but a question about Stochastic screening 
from someone who has only just heard of it.


Is this screening  something done at print driver level, and not a 
screen applied to the graphic itself prior to importing? ... therefore 
the same pdf file could be printed both with and without stochastic 
screening if the printer/driver support it?


Steve

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Richard Heck]

On 08/29/2013 08:38 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 1:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:
Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual 
quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality 
of the

printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


So, the typesetting advantages of LyX/LaTeX is retained in a PDF 
document?  That's great, since OS X has included native PDF export 
from the print dialog for some time.


You don't need to use anything like that. LyX exports directly to PDF 
(which, if I remember correctly, is really a variety of PostScript, 
tuned for the web).


Richard

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Richard Heck]

On 08/29/2013 08:41 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 8:19 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springersnowsh...@q.com  wrote:
Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the 
actual quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the 
quality of the

printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output. This
is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector fonts.


Would you have a guess as to the minimum resolution a printer would 
have to have that would show the difference in the quality of the 
final print?  I'm thinking something the average computer user would 
possibly own, as opposed to a professional printing shop.


No, I don't know enough about this, and obviously not as much as you. 
But even most home laser printers nowadays have enormous resolution. The 
pages I printed myself to test looked really good to my eyes.


Richard

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Marcus Glöder]

Hello Ken,

A LyX document is not printed. From a LyX document you generated first a 
LaTeX document and then from the LaTeX document a PDF document. The PDF 
document is printed.


Of course, the quality of the printout depends on the output device. 
There is a tiny difference between a DeskJet 500 [1] and a Heidelberg 
printing machine [2]. ;-)


Best regards
Marcus

[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Deskjet

[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidelberger_Druckmaschinen

--
PMs: m.gloe...@gmx.de

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/30/13 12:23 AM, Stephen George wrote:

On 30/08/2013 1:49 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 8:08 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

When doing stochastic screening, the ideal is to screen at the same
dpi as the final printing device.  Next best is an even multiple.
I.E. screen at 300 dpi for printing on a 600 dpi printer.  You also
have to decide on the finished physical size of the graphic before you
start.

I used to use the regular graphic in all the drafts.  When I was
satisfied with everything, then I applied the stochastic screen.


I just searched Inscape+stochastic screening and got a bunch of
useless stuff including an anti-Obama site (what, how'd Google do
that?). Then I did the same thing for LaTeX, nothing ontopic for us.
Same thing with Computer monitors. One site said most inkjet printers
use stochastic screening.


I suspect all home printers and laser printers now have some kind of
stochastic screening routines in their printer drivers.  But, I've not
tested the idea.



An interesting discussion, but a question about Stochastic screening
from someone who has only just heard of it.

Is this screening  something done at print driver level, and not a
screen applied to the graphic itself prior to importing? ... therefore
the same pdf file could be printed both with and without stochastic
screening if the printer/driver support it?


When I started with stochastic screening, printer drivers didn't have 
that ability.  To write my reply, I had to do a bit of research, it's 
amazing how much you forget when you don't work with things for a long 
time.  I found out that stochastic screening is also called frequency 
modulated screening, and error diffusion screening.  After I started 
using stochastic screening on the image itself, HP started having error 
diffusion features of printing.


I never applied the screening to the entire document, only to images. 
Then I placed the screened image into the document, and printed.


Personally, I doubt that doing the screening to text is even worth the 
effort.


My guess would be you could do either or both.  But I know there are 
expensive screening software out there, or so it seemed with just a 10 
minute investigation.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/30/13 8:25 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 08:41 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 8:19 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springersnowsh...@q.com  wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the
actual quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the
quality of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output. This
is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector fonts.


Would you have a guess as to the minimum resolution a printer would
have to have that would show the difference in the quality of the
final print?  I'm thinking something the average computer user would
possibly own, as opposed to a professional printing shop.


No, I don't know enough about this, and obviously not as much as you.
But even most home laser printers nowadays have enormous resolution. The
pages I printed myself to test looked really good to my eyes.


Admittedly, I've not had the time nor resources (meaning software) to 
test how things work today.  I was looking for free stochastic screening 
software when I found the expensive stuff.


But this has got me to wondering if the end result may end up being 
likened to the output of word processing software compared to 
typesetting software.  Maybe you won't notice the difference until you 
have them side by side.


This is something I won't be able to pursue at my end for at least two 
months.  Just no time.  :-(



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/30/13 8:22 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 08:38 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 1:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual
quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality
of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


So, the typesetting advantages of LyX/LaTeX is retained in a PDF
document?  That's great, since OS X has included native PDF export
from the print dialog for some time.


You don't need to use anything like that. LyX exports directly to PDF
(which, if I remember correctly, is really a variety of PostScript,
tuned for the web).


This is good to know about exporting to PDF.

AFAIK, PostScript is a printer language, where a PDF is supposed to be a 
cross platform, software independent document format.  And the web has 
nothing to do with it.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Stephen George]

On 30/08/2013 1:49 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 8:08 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

When doing stochastic screening, the ideal is to screen at the same 
dpi as the final printing device.  Next best is an even multiple.  
I.E. screen at 300 dpi for printing on a 600 dpi printer.  You also 
have to decide on the finished physical size of the graphic before you 
start.


I used to use the regular graphic in all the drafts.  When I was 
satisfied with everything, then I applied the stochastic screen.



I just searched Inscape+"stochastic screening" and got a bunch of
useless stuff including an anti-Obama site (what, how'd Google do
that?). Then I did the same thing for LaTeX, nothing ontopic for us.
Same thing with "Computer monitors". One site said most inkjet printers
use stochastic screening.


I suspect all home printers and laser printers now have some kind of 
stochastic screening routines in their printer drivers.  But, I've not 
tested the idea.




An interesting discussion, but a question about Stochastic screening 
from someone who has only just heard of it.


Is this screening  something done at print driver level, and not a 
screen applied to the graphic itself prior to importing? ... therefore 
the same pdf file could be printed both with and without stochastic 
screening if the printer/driver support it?


Steve

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Richard Heck]

On 08/29/2013 08:38 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 1:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer  wrote:
Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual 
quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality 
of the

printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


So, the typesetting advantages of LyX/LaTeX is retained in a PDF 
document?  That's great, since OS X has included native PDF export 
from the print dialog for some time.


You don't need to use anything like that. LyX exports directly to PDF 
(which, if I remember correctly, is really a variety of PostScript, 
tuned for the web).


Richard

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Richard Heck]

On 08/29/2013 08:41 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 8:19 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer  wrote:
Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the 
actual quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the 
quality of the

printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output. This
is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector fonts.


Would you have a guess as to the minimum resolution a printer would 
have to have that would show the difference in the quality of the 
final print?  I'm thinking something the average computer user would 
possibly own, as opposed to a professional printing shop.


No, I don't know enough about this, and obviously not as much as you. 
But even most home laser printers nowadays have enormous resolution. The 
pages I printed myself to test looked really good to my eyes.


Richard

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Marcus Glöder]

Hello Ken,

A LyX document is not printed. From a LyX document you generated first a 
LaTeX document and then from the LaTeX document a PDF document. The PDF 
document is printed.


Of course, the quality of the printout depends on the output device. 
There is a tiny difference between a DeskJet 500 [1] and a Heidelberg 
printing machine [2]. ;-)


Best regards
Marcus

[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Deskjet

[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidelberger_Druckmaschinen

--
PMs: m.gloe...@gmx.de

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/30/13 12:23 AM, Stephen George wrote:

On 30/08/2013 1:49 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 8:08 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

When doing stochastic screening, the ideal is to screen at the same
dpi as the final printing device.  Next best is an even multiple.
I.E. screen at 300 dpi for printing on a 600 dpi printer.  You also
have to decide on the finished physical size of the graphic before you
start.

I used to use the regular graphic in all the drafts.  When I was
satisfied with everything, then I applied the stochastic screen.


I just searched Inscape+"stochastic screening" and got a bunch of
useless stuff including an anti-Obama site (what, how'd Google do
that?). Then I did the same thing for LaTeX, nothing ontopic for us.
Same thing with "Computer monitors". One site said most inkjet printers
use stochastic screening.


I suspect all home printers and laser printers now have some kind of
stochastic screening routines in their printer drivers.  But, I've not
tested the idea.



An interesting discussion, but a question about Stochastic screening
from someone who has only just heard of it.

Is this screening  something done at print driver level, and not a
screen applied to the graphic itself prior to importing? ... therefore
the same pdf file could be printed both with and without stochastic
screening if the printer/driver support it?


When I started with stochastic screening, printer drivers didn't have 
that ability.  To write my reply, I had to do a bit of research, it's 
amazing how much you forget when you don't work with things for a long 
time.  I found out that stochastic screening is also called frequency 
modulated screening, and error diffusion screening.  After I started 
using stochastic screening on the image itself, HP started having error 
diffusion features of printing.


I never applied the screening to the entire document, only to images. 
Then I placed the screened image into the document, and printed.


Personally, I doubt that doing the screening to text is even worth the 
effort.


My guess would be you could do either or both.  But I know there are 
expensive screening software out there, or so it seemed with just a 10 
minute investigation.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/30/13 8:25 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 08:41 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 8:19 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer  wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the
actual quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the
quality of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output. This
is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector fonts.


Would you have a guess as to the minimum resolution a printer would
have to have that would show the difference in the quality of the
final print?  I'm thinking something the average computer user would
possibly own, as opposed to a professional printing shop.


No, I don't know enough about this, and obviously not as much as you.
But even most home laser printers nowadays have enormous resolution. The
pages I printed myself to test looked really good to my eyes.


Admittedly, I've not had the time nor resources (meaning software) to 
test how things work today.  I was looking for free stochastic screening 
software when I found the expensive stuff.


But this has got me to wondering if the end result may end up being 
likened to the output of word processing software compared to 
typesetting software.  Maybe you won't notice the difference until you 
have them side by side.


This is something I won't be able to pursue at my end for at least two 
months.  Just no time.  :-(



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/30/13 8:22 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 08:38 PM, Ken Springer wrote:

On 8/29/13 1:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer  wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual
quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality
of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


So, the typesetting advantages of LyX/LaTeX is retained in a PDF
document?  That's great, since OS X has included native PDF export
from the print dialog for some time.


You don't need to use anything like that. LyX exports directly to PDF
(which, if I remember correctly, is really a variety of PostScript,
tuned for the web).


This is good to know about exporting to PDF.

AFAIK, PostScript is a printer language, where a PDF is supposed to be a 
cross platform, software independent document format.  And the web has 
nothing to do with it.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Liviu Andronic]

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:
 Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual quality
 of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality of the
 printer being used.

 Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?

Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.

Liviu

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Richard Heck]

On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output. This 
is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector fonts.


That said, my two books /Frege's Theorem/ and /Reading Frege's 
_Grundgesetze_/ were both printed, by the publisher, from a PDF I 
provided. And they look great, if I do say so myself. I assume they used 
very good printers!


Richard

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Steve Litt]

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 10:19:34 -0400
Richard Heck rgh...@lyx.org wrote:

 On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:
  On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
  wrote:
  Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the
  actual quality of the printed output from a LyX document will
  depend on the quality of the printer being used.
 
  Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?
 
  Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
  quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
  to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be
  rock-solid, whichever printer you use.
 
 Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output.
 This is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector
 fonts.
 
 That said, my two books /Frege's Theorem/ and /Reading Frege's 
 _Grundgesetze_/ were both printed, by the publisher, from a PDF I 
 provided. And they look great, if I do say so myself. I assume they
 used very good printers!
 
 Richard

Sort of on topic: After becoming dissatisfied with the 26 minute print
time, on my new Brother MFC-8810dw 40ppm printer, of my book Manager's
Guide to Technical Troubleshooting
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/mg.htm), I set the print
resolution down from 1200x1200dpi to 600x600dpi (11 minutes, yeah!), my
admittedly old eyes could find no appreciable difference in the print,
except for an almost imperceptable lightening at 600dpi. But the images
were another matter: They looked better at 600 because 1200 showcased
the mistakes and pixellations of the artwork itself.

To bring this back to on-topicness, the print resulting from LyX looks
good at any resolution, always assuming you pick a good font for
printing (I like Century Schoolbook).

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/29/13 1:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


So, the typesetting advantages of LyX/LaTeX is retained in a PDF 
document?  That's great, since OS X has included native PDF export from 
the print dialog for some time.


I'm toying with, and working on, the beginnings of a couple of projects 
that will end with printing, and I want them to look good.


I'd thought about a desktop publishing program for the final setup, but 
I won't need the power of placing frames and such.  But want something 
better that the average word processor that will also work for me on a 
daily basis.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/29/13 8:19 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springersnowsh...@q.com  wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output. This
is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector fonts.


Would you have a guess as to the minimum resolution a printer would have 
to have that would show the difference in the quality of the final 
print?  I'm thinking something the average computer user would possibly 
own, as opposed to a professional printing shop.






That said, my two books /Frege's Theorem/ and /Reading Frege's
_Grundgesetze_/ were both printed, by the publisher, from a PDF I
provided. And they look great, if I do say so myself. I assume they used
very good printers!

Richard




--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/29/13 4:47 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 10:19:34 -0400
Richard Heck rgh...@lyx.org wrote:


On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the
actual quality of the printed output from a LyX document will
depend on the quality of the printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be
rock-solid, whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output.
This is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector
fonts.

That said, my two books /Frege's Theorem/ and /Reading Frege's
_Grundgesetze_/ were both printed, by the publisher, from a PDF I
provided. And they look great, if I do say so myself. I assume they
used very good printers!

Richard


Sort of on topic: After becoming dissatisfied with the 26 minute print
time, on my new Brother MFC-8810dw 40ppm printer, of my book Manager's
Guide to Technical Troubleshooting
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/mg.htm), I set the print
resolution down from 1200x1200dpi to 600x600dpi (11 minutes, yeah!), my
admittedly old eyes could find no appreciable difference in the print,
except for an almost imperceptable lightening at 600dpi. But the images
were another matter: They looked better at 600 because 1200 showcased
the mistakes and pixellations of the artwork itself.



What would have happened if you applied stochastic screening to the 
images?  I'm assuming that would be retained in a PDF file.








To bring this back to on-topicness, the print resulting from LyX looks
good at any resolution, always assuming you pick a good font for
printing (I like Century Schoolbook).

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance




--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Steve Litt]

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 18:51:24 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

 On 8/29/13 4:47 PM, Steve Litt wrote:
  On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 10:19:34 -0400
  Richard Heck rgh...@lyx.org wrote:
 
  On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:
  On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
  wrote:
  Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the
  actual quality of the printed output from a LyX document will
  depend on the quality of the printer being used.
 
  Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?
 
  Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
  quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once
  exported to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should
  be rock-solid, whichever printer you use.
 
  Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output.
  This is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector
  fonts.
 
  That said, my two books /Frege's Theorem/ and /Reading Frege's
  _Grundgesetze_/ were both printed, by the publisher, from a PDF I
  provided. And they look great, if I do say so myself. I assume they
  used very good printers!
 
  Richard
 
  Sort of on topic: After becoming dissatisfied with the 26 minute
  print time, on my new Brother MFC-8810dw 40ppm printer, of my book
  Manager's Guide to Technical Troubleshooting
  (http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/mg.htm), I set the print
  resolution down from 1200x1200dpi to 600x600dpi (11 minutes,
  yeah!), my admittedly old eyes could find no appreciable difference
  in the print, except for an almost imperceptable lightening at
  600dpi. But the images were another matter: They looked better at
  600 because 1200 showcased the mistakes and pixellations of the
  artwork itself.
 
 
 What would have happened if you applied stochastic screening to the 
 images?  I'm assuming that would be retained in a PDF file.

Deeeud!

You're getting so tweak here I had to look up stochastic screening on
Wikipedia.

The graphics involved were:

1) A photo I took of a wrench

2) Various diagrams I did in Dia, Inkscape and Gimp.

Since I don't believe LaTeX can natively handle .svg, a lot of this
depends on the conversion LyX uses (which of course you can configure).
Keep in mind also that filesize goes way up with resolution, and that
makes it costly to email or download PDFs, and taxes printers in terms
of making the engine stop while loading the next big image.

I've known about stochastic screening for all of five minutes now
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_screening) so let me dazzle
you with my opinions...

Any laserprinter I ever used used, as far as I know, a certain number
of dots per inch, each dot being a certain shade (I use
monochrome/grayscale) or color (if you want each page to cost you a
dime or a quarter or whatever). The shades are made from dot size,
with dots being a whole bunch of dots from the dpi measurement. As far
as I know, they cannot vary placement of their dots, only shade or
color via size (AM). So even if the PDF looked great on the screen, I'd
imagine the printer would have limited ability to reproduce the (FM)
stochastic screening.

Indeed, the Wikipedia page talks of stochastic screening mainly in
terms of printing from plates (which I presume assumes print runs of at
least 100), and not from laser printers.

I just searched Inscape+stochastic screening and got a bunch of
useless stuff including an anti-Obama site (what, how'd Google do
that?). Then I did the same thing for LaTeX, nothing ontopic for us.
Same thing with Computer monitors. One site said most inkjet printers
use stochastic screening.

I don't think stochastic screening will come into your life unless
you're using a very unusual printer, or long-run print at a print
house. It won't help me, AFAIK, because today's monitors can't use it. 

If filesize is no object, just go 1200dpi, and make sure your .svg
to .eps conversions are high resolution. If filesize *is* an issue, you
appear to know a lot more than I about how to minimize pixelization,
moire, and all that stuff.

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/29/13 8:08 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 18:51:24 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:


On 8/29/13 4:47 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 10:19:34 -0400
Richard Heck rgh...@lyx.org wrote:


On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the
actual quality of the printed output from a LyX document will
depend on the quality of the printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once
exported to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should
be rock-solid, whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output.
This is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector
fonts.

That said, my two books /Frege's Theorem/ and /Reading Frege's
_Grundgesetze_/ were both printed, by the publisher, from a PDF I
provided. And they look great, if I do say so myself. I assume they
used very good printers!

Richard


Sort of on topic: After becoming dissatisfied with the 26 minute
print time, on my new Brother MFC-8810dw 40ppm printer, of my book
Manager's Guide to Technical Troubleshooting
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/mg.htm), I set the print
resolution down from 1200x1200dpi to 600x600dpi (11 minutes,
yeah!), my admittedly old eyes could find no appreciable difference
in the print, except for an almost imperceptable lightening at
600dpi. But the images were another matter: They looked better at
600 because 1200 showcased the mistakes and pixellations of the
artwork itself.



What would have happened if you applied stochastic screening to the
images?  I'm assuming that would be retained in a PDF file.


Deeeud!

You're getting so tweak here I had to look up stochastic screening on
Wikipedia.

The graphics involved were:

1) A photo I took of a wrench

2) Various diagrams I did in Dia, Inkscape and Gimp.


I had to look up Dia, and thanks for that.  I've added the downloading 
of the Mac and Windows versions to my to do list.



Since I don't believe LaTeX can natively handle .svg, a lot of this
depends on the conversion LyX uses (which of course you can configure).
Keep in mind also that filesize goes way up with resolution, and that
makes it costly to email or download PDFs, and taxes printers in terms
of making the engine stop while loading the next big image.


.svg is a vector graphics file format.  Stochastic screening is for 
bitmapped files.  It works best on lower resolution printers.  It's been 
years since I've use stochastic screening, so I don't know how it would 
look on a 1200 dpi laser, for instance.  But on a 300 dpi laser, you 
would not believe how real a printed a photograph can look.


I've got a 20 year old computer in the back room with a desktop 
publishing program on it that has a stochastic screening module.



I've known about stochastic screening for all of five minutes now
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_screening) so let me dazzle
you with my opinions...

Any laserprinter I ever used used, as far as I know, a certain number
of dots per inch, each dot being a certain shade (I use
monochrome/grayscale) or color (if you want each page to cost you a
dime or a quarter or whatever). The shades are made from dot size,
with dots being a whole bunch of dots from the dpi measurement. As far
as I know, they cannot vary placement of their dots, only shade or
color via size (AM). So even if the PDF looked great on the screen, I'd
imagine the printer would have limited ability to reproduce the (FM)
stochastic screening.


You are correct on the dpi part, and contemporary printers can emulate 
dpi output resolutions lower than what they are capable of.


However, you're wrong on each dot being a certain shade.  The dot 
produced by a BW laser is either black or white.  White meaning no 
toner is applied to the paper.  You can't change the color/shade of the 
toner.


Where people go wrong is making the assumption that the dot produced by 
the printer is a 1:1 ratio with the dot being printed.  I.E., one 
printer dot for each dot/pixel in the photo.


In reality, a number of printer dots are used to create the single 
dot/pixel in a bitmapped graphic file.  This is where the line screen 
frequency, or LPI, comes into play.


A square grid of printed dots is used to create a single pixel from the 
bitmapped graphic.  Unless things have changed, the maximum number of 
possible grey shades is 256.  (Actually, it's 257, but that's not a 
multiple of 2.)  So the best possible greyscale picture that you can 
print has a maximum of 256 shades of grey.


Example...

For ease of this post, let's say you use a 3X3 square of printer dots to 
create the single pixel dot in the graphic.  And, you want 50% grey. 
For a single row of pixels from the file, 

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Liviu Andronic]

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:
 Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual quality
 of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality of the
 printer being used.

 Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?

Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.

Liviu

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Richard Heck]

On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output. This 
is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector fonts.


That said, my two books /Frege's Theorem/ and /Reading Frege's 
_Grundgesetze_/ were both printed, by the publisher, from a PDF I 
provided. And they look great, if I do say so myself. I assume they used 
very good printers!


Richard

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Steve Litt]

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 10:19:34 -0400
Richard Heck rgh...@lyx.org wrote:

 On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:
  On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
  wrote:
  Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the
  actual quality of the printed output from a LyX document will
  depend on the quality of the printer being used.
 
  Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?
 
  Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
  quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
  to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be
  rock-solid, whichever printer you use.
 
 Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output.
 This is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector
 fonts.
 
 That said, my two books /Frege's Theorem/ and /Reading Frege's 
 _Grundgesetze_/ were both printed, by the publisher, from a PDF I 
 provided. And they look great, if I do say so myself. I assume they
 used very good printers!
 
 Richard

Sort of on topic: After becoming dissatisfied with the 26 minute print
time, on my new Brother MFC-8810dw 40ppm printer, of my book Manager's
Guide to Technical Troubleshooting
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/mg.htm), I set the print
resolution down from 1200x1200dpi to 600x600dpi (11 minutes, yeah!), my
admittedly old eyes could find no appreciable difference in the print,
except for an almost imperceptable lightening at 600dpi. But the images
were another matter: They looked better at 600 because 1200 showcased
the mistakes and pixellations of the artwork itself.

To bring this back to on-topicness, the print resulting from LyX looks
good at any resolution, always assuming you pick a good font for
printing (I like Century Schoolbook).

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/29/13 1:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


So, the typesetting advantages of LyX/LaTeX is retained in a PDF 
document?  That's great, since OS X has included native PDF export from 
the print dialog for some time.


I'm toying with, and working on, the beginnings of a couple of projects 
that will end with printing, and I want them to look good.


I'd thought about a desktop publishing program for the final setup, but 
I won't need the power of placing frames and such.  But want something 
better that the average word processor that will also work for me on a 
daily basis.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/29/13 8:19 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springersnowsh...@q.com  wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output. This
is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector fonts.


Would you have a guess as to the minimum resolution a printer would have 
to have that would show the difference in the quality of the final 
print?  I'm thinking something the average computer user would possibly 
own, as opposed to a professional printing shop.






That said, my two books /Frege's Theorem/ and /Reading Frege's
_Grundgesetze_/ were both printed, by the publisher, from a PDF I
provided. And they look great, if I do say so myself. I assume they used
very good printers!

Richard




--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/29/13 4:47 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 10:19:34 -0400
Richard Heck rgh...@lyx.org wrote:


On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the
actual quality of the printed output from a LyX document will
depend on the quality of the printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be
rock-solid, whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output.
This is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector
fonts.

That said, my two books /Frege's Theorem/ and /Reading Frege's
_Grundgesetze_/ were both printed, by the publisher, from a PDF I
provided. And they look great, if I do say so myself. I assume they
used very good printers!

Richard


Sort of on topic: After becoming dissatisfied with the 26 minute print
time, on my new Brother MFC-8810dw 40ppm printer, of my book Manager's
Guide to Technical Troubleshooting
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/mg.htm), I set the print
resolution down from 1200x1200dpi to 600x600dpi (11 minutes, yeah!), my
admittedly old eyes could find no appreciable difference in the print,
except for an almost imperceptable lightening at 600dpi. But the images
were another matter: They looked better at 600 because 1200 showcased
the mistakes and pixellations of the artwork itself.



What would have happened if you applied stochastic screening to the 
images?  I'm assuming that would be retained in a PDF file.








To bring this back to on-topicness, the print resulting from LyX looks
good at any resolution, always assuming you pick a good font for
printing (I like Century Schoolbook).

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance




--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Steve Litt]

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 18:51:24 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

 On 8/29/13 4:47 PM, Steve Litt wrote:
  On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 10:19:34 -0400
  Richard Heck rgh...@lyx.org wrote:
 
  On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:
  On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
  wrote:
  Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the
  actual quality of the printed output from a LyX document will
  depend on the quality of the printer being used.
 
  Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?
 
  Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
  quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once
  exported to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should
  be rock-solid, whichever printer you use.
 
  Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output.
  This is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector
  fonts.
 
  That said, my two books /Frege's Theorem/ and /Reading Frege's
  _Grundgesetze_/ were both printed, by the publisher, from a PDF I
  provided. And they look great, if I do say so myself. I assume they
  used very good printers!
 
  Richard
 
  Sort of on topic: After becoming dissatisfied with the 26 minute
  print time, on my new Brother MFC-8810dw 40ppm printer, of my book
  Manager's Guide to Technical Troubleshooting
  (http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/mg.htm), I set the print
  resolution down from 1200x1200dpi to 600x600dpi (11 minutes,
  yeah!), my admittedly old eyes could find no appreciable difference
  in the print, except for an almost imperceptable lightening at
  600dpi. But the images were another matter: They looked better at
  600 because 1200 showcased the mistakes and pixellations of the
  artwork itself.
 
 
 What would have happened if you applied stochastic screening to the 
 images?  I'm assuming that would be retained in a PDF file.

Deeeud!

You're getting so tweak here I had to look up stochastic screening on
Wikipedia.

The graphics involved were:

1) A photo I took of a wrench

2) Various diagrams I did in Dia, Inkscape and Gimp.

Since I don't believe LaTeX can natively handle .svg, a lot of this
depends on the conversion LyX uses (which of course you can configure).
Keep in mind also that filesize goes way up with resolution, and that
makes it costly to email or download PDFs, and taxes printers in terms
of making the engine stop while loading the next big image.

I've known about stochastic screening for all of five minutes now
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_screening) so let me dazzle
you with my opinions...

Any laserprinter I ever used used, as far as I know, a certain number
of dots per inch, each dot being a certain shade (I use
monochrome/grayscale) or color (if you want each page to cost you a
dime or a quarter or whatever). The shades are made from dot size,
with dots being a whole bunch of dots from the dpi measurement. As far
as I know, they cannot vary placement of their dots, only shade or
color via size (AM). So even if the PDF looked great on the screen, I'd
imagine the printer would have limited ability to reproduce the (FM)
stochastic screening.

Indeed, the Wikipedia page talks of stochastic screening mainly in
terms of printing from plates (which I presume assumes print runs of at
least 100), and not from laser printers.

I just searched Inscape+stochastic screening and got a bunch of
useless stuff including an anti-Obama site (what, how'd Google do
that?). Then I did the same thing for LaTeX, nothing ontopic for us.
Same thing with Computer monitors. One site said most inkjet printers
use stochastic screening.

I don't think stochastic screening will come into your life unless
you're using a very unusual printer, or long-run print at a print
house. It won't help me, AFAIK, because today's monitors can't use it. 

If filesize is no object, just go 1200dpi, and make sure your .svg
to .eps conversions are high resolution. If filesize *is* an issue, you
appear to know a lot more than I about how to minimize pixelization,
moire, and all that stuff.

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/29/13 8:08 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 18:51:24 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:


On 8/29/13 4:47 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 10:19:34 -0400
Richard Heck rgh...@lyx.org wrote:


On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the
actual quality of the printed output from a LyX document will
depend on the quality of the printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once
exported to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should
be rock-solid, whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output.
This is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector
fonts.

That said, my two books /Frege's Theorem/ and /Reading Frege's
_Grundgesetze_/ were both printed, by the publisher, from a PDF I
provided. And they look great, if I do say so myself. I assume they
used very good printers!

Richard


Sort of on topic: After becoming dissatisfied with the 26 minute
print time, on my new Brother MFC-8810dw 40ppm printer, of my book
Manager's Guide to Technical Troubleshooting
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/mg.htm), I set the print
resolution down from 1200x1200dpi to 600x600dpi (11 minutes,
yeah!), my admittedly old eyes could find no appreciable difference
in the print, except for an almost imperceptable lightening at
600dpi. But the images were another matter: They looked better at
600 because 1200 showcased the mistakes and pixellations of the
artwork itself.



What would have happened if you applied stochastic screening to the
images?  I'm assuming that would be retained in a PDF file.


Deeeud!

You're getting so tweak here I had to look up stochastic screening on
Wikipedia.

The graphics involved were:

1) A photo I took of a wrench

2) Various diagrams I did in Dia, Inkscape and Gimp.


I had to look up Dia, and thanks for that.  I've added the downloading 
of the Mac and Windows versions to my to do list.



Since I don't believe LaTeX can natively handle .svg, a lot of this
depends on the conversion LyX uses (which of course you can configure).
Keep in mind also that filesize goes way up with resolution, and that
makes it costly to email or download PDFs, and taxes printers in terms
of making the engine stop while loading the next big image.


.svg is a vector graphics file format.  Stochastic screening is for 
bitmapped files.  It works best on lower resolution printers.  It's been 
years since I've use stochastic screening, so I don't know how it would 
look on a 1200 dpi laser, for instance.  But on a 300 dpi laser, you 
would not believe how real a printed a photograph can look.


I've got a 20 year old computer in the back room with a desktop 
publishing program on it that has a stochastic screening module.



I've known about stochastic screening for all of five minutes now
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_screening) so let me dazzle
you with my opinions...

Any laserprinter I ever used used, as far as I know, a certain number
of dots per inch, each dot being a certain shade (I use
monochrome/grayscale) or color (if you want each page to cost you a
dime or a quarter or whatever). The shades are made from dot size,
with dots being a whole bunch of dots from the dpi measurement. As far
as I know, they cannot vary placement of their dots, only shade or
color via size (AM). So even if the PDF looked great on the screen, I'd
imagine the printer would have limited ability to reproduce the (FM)
stochastic screening.


You are correct on the dpi part, and contemporary printers can emulate 
dpi output resolutions lower than what they are capable of.


However, you're wrong on each dot being a certain shade.  The dot 
produced by a BW laser is either black or white.  White meaning no 
toner is applied to the paper.  You can't change the color/shade of the 
toner.


Where people go wrong is making the assumption that the dot produced by 
the printer is a 1:1 ratio with the dot being printed.  I.E., one 
printer dot for each dot/pixel in the photo.


In reality, a number of printer dots are used to create the single 
dot/pixel in a bitmapped graphic file.  This is where the line screen 
frequency, or LPI, comes into play.


A square grid of printed dots is used to create a single pixel from the 
bitmapped graphic.  Unless things have changed, the maximum number of 
possible grey shades is 256.  (Actually, it's 257, but that's not a 
multiple of 2.)  So the best possible greyscale picture that you can 
print has a maximum of 256 shades of grey.


Example...

For ease of this post, let's say you use a 3X3 square of printer dots to 
create the single pixel dot in the graphic.  And, you want 50% grey. 
For a single row of pixels from the file, 

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Liviu Andronic]

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer  wrote:
> Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual quality
> of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality of the
> printer being used.
>
> Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?
>
Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.

Liviu

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Richard Heck]

On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer  wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output. This 
is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector fonts.


That said, my two books /Frege's Theorem/ and /Reading Frege's 
_Grundgesetze_/ were both printed, by the publisher, from a PDF I 
provided. And they look great, if I do say so myself. I assume they used 
very good printers!


Richard

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Steve Litt]

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 10:19:34 -0400
Richard Heck  wrote:

> On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:
> > On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer 
> > wrote:
> >> Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the
> >> actual quality of the printed output from a LyX document will
> >> depend on the quality of the printer being used.
> >>
> >> Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?
> >>
> > Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
> > quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
> > to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be
> > rock-solid, whichever printer you use.
> 
> Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output.
> This is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector
> fonts.
> 
> That said, my two books /Frege's Theorem/ and /Reading Frege's 
> _Grundgesetze_/ were both printed, by the publisher, from a PDF I 
> provided. And they look great, if I do say so myself. I assume they
> used very good printers!
> 
> Richard

Sort of on topic: After becoming dissatisfied with the 26 minute print
time, on my new Brother MFC-8810dw 40ppm printer, of my book "Manager's
Guide to Technical Troubleshooting
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/mg.htm), I set the print
resolution down from 1200x1200dpi to 600x600dpi (11 minutes, yeah!), my
admittedly old eyes could find no appreciable difference in the print,
except for an almost imperceptable lightening at 600dpi. But the images
were another matter: They looked better at 600 because 1200 showcased
the mistakes and pixellations of the artwork itself.

To bring this back to on-topicness, the print resulting from LyX looks
good at any resolution, always assuming you pick a good font for
printing (I like Century Schoolbook).

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/29/13 1:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer  wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


So, the typesetting advantages of LyX/LaTeX is retained in a PDF 
document?  That's great, since OS X has included native PDF export from 
the print dialog for some time.


I'm toying with, and working on, the beginnings of a couple of projects 
that will end with printing, and I want them to look good.


I'd thought about a desktop publishing program for the final setup, but 
I won't need the power of placing frames and such.  But want something 
better that the average word processor that will also work for me on a 
daily basis.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/29/13 8:19 AM, Richard Heck wrote:

On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer  wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the actual quality
of the printed output from a LyX document will depend on the quality of the
printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be rock-solid,
whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output. This
is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector fonts.


Would you have a guess as to the minimum resolution a printer would have 
to have that would show the difference in the quality of the final 
print?  I'm thinking something the average computer user would possibly 
own, as opposed to a professional printing shop.






That said, my two books /Frege's Theorem/ and /Reading Frege's
_Grundgesetze_/ were both printed, by the publisher, from a PDF I
provided. And they look great, if I do say so myself. I assume they used
very good printers!

Richard




--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/29/13 4:47 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 10:19:34 -0400
Richard Heck  wrote:


On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer 
wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the
actual quality of the printed output from a LyX document will
depend on the quality of the printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once exported
to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should be
rock-solid, whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output.
This is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector
fonts.

That said, my two books /Frege's Theorem/ and /Reading Frege's
_Grundgesetze_/ were both printed, by the publisher, from a PDF I
provided. And they look great, if I do say so myself. I assume they
used very good printers!

Richard


Sort of on topic: After becoming dissatisfied with the 26 minute print
time, on my new Brother MFC-8810dw 40ppm printer, of my book "Manager's
Guide to Technical Troubleshooting
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/mg.htm), I set the print
resolution down from 1200x1200dpi to 600x600dpi (11 minutes, yeah!), my
admittedly old eyes could find no appreciable difference in the print,
except for an almost imperceptable lightening at 600dpi. But the images
were another matter: They looked better at 600 because 1200 showcased
the mistakes and pixellations of the artwork itself.



What would have happened if you applied stochastic screening to the 
images?  I'm assuming that would be retained in a PDF file.








To bring this back to on-topicness, the print resulting from LyX looks
good at any resolution, always assuming you pick a good font for
printing (I like Century Schoolbook).

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance




--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 23.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.04

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Steve Litt]

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 18:51:24 -0600
Ken Springer  wrote:

> On 8/29/13 4:47 PM, Steve Litt wrote:
> > On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 10:19:34 -0400
> > Richard Heck  wrote:
> >
> >> On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:
> >>> On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer 
> >>> wrote:
>  Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the
>  actual quality of the printed output from a LyX document will
>  depend on the quality of the printer being used.
> 
>  Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?
> 
> >>> Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
> >>> quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once
> >>> exported to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should
> >>> be rock-solid, whichever printer you use.
> >>
> >> Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output.
> >> This is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector
> >> fonts.
> >>
> >> That said, my two books /Frege's Theorem/ and /Reading Frege's
> >> _Grundgesetze_/ were both printed, by the publisher, from a PDF I
> >> provided. And they look great, if I do say so myself. I assume they
> >> used very good printers!
> >>
> >> Richard
> >
> > Sort of on topic: After becoming dissatisfied with the 26 minute
> > print time, on my new Brother MFC-8810dw 40ppm printer, of my book
> > "Manager's Guide to Technical Troubleshooting
> > (http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/mg.htm), I set the print
> > resolution down from 1200x1200dpi to 600x600dpi (11 minutes,
> > yeah!), my admittedly old eyes could find no appreciable difference
> > in the print, except for an almost imperceptable lightening at
> > 600dpi. But the images were another matter: They looked better at
> > 600 because 1200 showcased the mistakes and pixellations of the
> > artwork itself.
> 
> 
> What would have happened if you applied stochastic screening to the 
> images?  I'm assuming that would be retained in a PDF file.

Deeeud!

You're getting so tweak here I had to look up stochastic screening on
Wikipedia.

The graphics involved were:

1) A photo I took of a wrench

2) Various diagrams I did in Dia, Inkscape and Gimp.

Since I don't believe LaTeX can natively handle .svg, a lot of this
depends on the conversion LyX uses (which of course you can configure).
Keep in mind also that filesize goes way up with resolution, and that
makes it costly to email or download PDFs, and taxes printers in terms
of making the engine stop while loading the next big image.

I've known about stochastic screening for all of five minutes now
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_screening) so let me dazzle
you with my opinions...

Any laserprinter I ever used used, as far as I know, a certain number
of dots per inch, each dot being a certain shade (I use
monochrome/grayscale) or color (if you want each page to cost you a
dime or a quarter or whatever). The shades are made from dot size,
with "dots" being a whole bunch of dots from the dpi measurement. As far
as I know, they cannot vary placement of their dots, only shade or
color via size (AM). So even if the PDF looked great on the screen, I'd
imagine the printer would have limited ability to reproduce the (FM)
stochastic screening.

Indeed, the Wikipedia page talks of stochastic screening mainly in
terms of printing from plates (which I presume assumes print runs of at
least 100), and not from laser printers.

I just searched Inscape+"stochastic screening" and got a bunch of
useless stuff including an anti-Obama site (what, how'd Google do
that?). Then I did the same thing for LaTeX, nothing ontopic for us.
Same thing with "Computer monitors". One site said most inkjet printers
use stochastic screening.

I don't think stochastic screening will come into your life unless
you're using a very unusual printer, or long-run print at a print
house. It won't help me, AFAIK, because today's monitors can't use it. 

If filesize is no object, just go 1200dpi, and make sure your .svg
to .eps conversions are high resolution. If filesize *is* an issue, you
appear to know a lot more than I about how to minimize pixelization,
moire, and all that stuff.

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance

Re: Question #2: Printed results from LyX

[Ken Springer]

On 8/29/13 8:08 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 18:51:24 -0600
Ken Springer  wrote:


On 8/29/13 4:47 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 29 Aug 2013 10:19:34 -0400
Richard Heck  wrote:


On 08/29/2013 03:59 AM, Liviu Andronic wrote:

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 3:28 AM, Ken Springer 
wrote:

Much like the speakers in a sound system, it occurs to me the
actual quality of the printed output from a LyX document will
depend on the quality of the printer being used.

Right or wrong?  If wrong, why?


Well, kind of. Of course the printing quality will depend on the
quality of the printer and the paper that you use. But once
exported to PDF, the typesetting quality of your document should
be rock-solid, whichever printer you use.


Obviously, a low resolution printer will give worse printed output.
This is especially true since the fonts used are (usually) vector
fonts.

That said, my two books /Frege's Theorem/ and /Reading Frege's
_Grundgesetze_/ were both printed, by the publisher, from a PDF I
provided. And they look great, if I do say so myself. I assume they
used very good printers!

Richard


Sort of on topic: After becoming dissatisfied with the 26 minute
print time, on my new Brother MFC-8810dw 40ppm printer, of my book
"Manager's Guide to Technical Troubleshooting
(http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/mg.htm), I set the print
resolution down from 1200x1200dpi to 600x600dpi (11 minutes,
yeah!), my admittedly old eyes could find no appreciable difference
in the print, except for an almost imperceptable lightening at
600dpi. But the images were another matter: They looked better at
600 because 1200 showcased the mistakes and pixellations of the
artwork itself.



What would have happened if you applied stochastic screening to the
images?  I'm assuming that would be retained in a PDF file.


Deeeud!

You're getting so tweak here I had to look up stochastic screening on
Wikipedia.

The graphics involved were:

1) A photo I took of a wrench

2) Various diagrams I did in Dia, Inkscape and Gimp.


I had to look up Dia, and thanks for that.  I've added the downloading 
of the Mac and Windows versions to my to do list.



Since I don't believe LaTeX can natively handle .svg, a lot of this
depends on the conversion LyX uses (which of course you can configure).
Keep in mind also that filesize goes way up with resolution, and that
makes it costly to email or download PDFs, and taxes printers in terms
of making the engine stop while loading the next big image.


.svg is a vector graphics file format.  Stochastic screening is for 
bitmapped files.  It works best on lower resolution printers.  It's been 
years since I've use stochastic screening, so I don't know how it would 
look on a 1200 dpi laser, for instance.  But on a 300 dpi laser, you 
would not believe how "real" a printed a photograph can look.


I've got a 20 year old computer in the back room with a desktop 
publishing program on it that has a stochastic screening module.



I've known about stochastic screening for all of five minutes now
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_screening) so let me dazzle
you with my opinions...

Any laserprinter I ever used used, as far as I know, a certain number
of dots per inch, each dot being a certain shade (I use
monochrome/grayscale) or color (if you want each page to cost you a
dime or a quarter or whatever). The shades are made from dot size,
with "dots" being a whole bunch of dots from the dpi measurement. As far
as I know, they cannot vary placement of their dots, only shade or
color via size (AM). So even if the PDF looked great on the screen, I'd
imagine the printer would have limited ability to reproduce the (FM)
stochastic screening.


You are correct on the dpi part, and contemporary printers can emulate 
dpi output resolutions lower than what they are capable of.


However, you're wrong on each dot being a certain shade.  The dot 
produced by a B laser is either black or white.  White meaning no 
toner is applied to the paper.  You can't change the color/shade of the 
toner.


Where people go wrong is making the assumption that the dot produced by 
the printer is a 1:1 ratio with the dot being printed.  I.E., one 
printer dot for each dot/pixel in the photo.


In reality, a number of printer dots are used to create the single 
dot/pixel in a bitmapped graphic file.  This is where the line screen 
frequency, or LPI, comes into play.


A square grid of printed dots is used to create a single pixel from the 
bitmapped graphic.  Unless things have changed, the maximum number of 
possible grey shades is 256.  (Actually, it's 257, but that's not a 
multiple of 2.)  So the best possible greyscale picture that you can 
print has a maximum of 256 shades of grey.


Example...

For ease of this post, let's say you use a 3X3 square of printer dots to 
create the single pixel dot in the graphic.  And, you want 50% grey. 
For a single row of pixels from