Fonts & Character Sets ⇒ Bitmap vs vector?

[benti]

Hej,

I have a very general question that I have difficulties finding an answer to. I'm currently preparing a manuscript for publication as a book, and I was wondering whether the quality of the eventual printed volumes is affected by the choice of font technique: bitmap or vector fonts.

If I understand correctly, the cm font used in the default LaTeX setup is a bitmap font; scaling restrictions typical of such fonts can be overcome by packages like fix-cm.

This being the situation, are there any real arguments left for using a type-1 font instead? My main objection to doing so is that I don't like the regular cm type-1 replacements, which to my taste are too 'meaty' and resemble Monotype's TNR too much. Nevertheless, if they eventually produce a better-quality print, that would definitely tip the scale.

Your thoughts on this are much appreciated.

thanks,
Niels

[josephwright]

In general, most people aim to use vector fonts (for example, using lmodern as the base font in place of cm). For printing, it depends on your printer's requirements as well as anything else. Most will prefer vector fonts, I think. If you use the output electronically, Type 3 (bitmap) fonts can be a problem on occasion. The newer vector fonts tend also to have better glyph placement so that searching PDFs works properly.