I used to have scale 1 2000 base-scale 1 1000 in my layout. That worked OK, but the symbols were very small and the text was microscopic.
So I added code metapost fonts_setup(10,16,20,24,28) And that made the text a sensible size. I just changed base scale to read base-scale 1 2000 which makes the symbols a much more sensible size, but makes the text too big. My understanding of these two values is that scale sets the scale of the output (i.e how big the final PDF sheet is in map mode, or how many sheets in atlas mode) , whilst base-scale 'has the same effect as if the map printed in base-scale would be photreduced to the scale' (quote from thbook) But if it was photoreduced then the fonts and symbol size shouldn't change. So I am confused about how this should work. When would I ever want scale and base-scale to be different? Why does changing base-scale effect the size of symbols and text? On a related point I tried doing an atlas version with the defaults (i.e. 1:200) and get loads of 'number too big errors' from metafont. I can see why such a scale is a problem in map mode (page larger than PDF can manage), but in atlas mode the page size is limited to A4 (or whatever) - so why can I not print an atlas (with a lot of sheets) showing the system in high detail? Is it a fundamental problem of the way the PDFs are generated or can it be fixed? Wookey -- Aleph One Ltd, Bottisham, CAMBRIDGE, CB5 9BA, UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 811679 work: http://www.aleph1.co.uk/ play: http://www.chaos.org.uk/~wookey/
