Fonts & Character Sets ⇒ Fonts not smooth

[tarlou]

Hi all,
I just turn from miktex+windows+winedit to texlive+archlinux+kile. The problem is, the pdf generated by texlive on linux is not as good as by miktex on windows. The font is not so black and smooth.
Is there any way to increase the dpi or something? or is it a common problem of texlive/linux?

Thanks.

[php1ic]

This may be to do with bitmap/true type fonts and which are used in the dvi->ps->pdf conversion. I don't use kile, and compile my documents through the command line, but I'm sure there are some settings within kile you can change.

Here are the lines of code that I now use in all of my latex documents, with comments as I understand their use

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\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}          % Ensure correct font encoding.
%\usepackage{pslatex}             % Uses postscript fonts rather than bitmaps (higer quality final pdf).
\usepackage{mathptmx}             % -
\usepackage[scaled=.90]{helvet}   %  |- Better than using pslatex (something about scaling).
\usepackage{courier}              % -

I compile to pdf using

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latex file.tex
dvips -Ppdf file.dvi -o
ps2pdf file.ps

the -Ppdf flag of dvips tells it not to use bitmap fonts.

[localghost]

You should at least use the right font encoding as suggested by php1ic with the fontenc package. The rest is a matter of taste. If you like the default Computer Modern (CM) fonts, you can have a Postscript version with the Latin Modern (LM) fonts.

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\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lmodern}

Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten¹

[tarlou]

Thank you! By these commands it really generates better pdf, but still not so good on some math symbols .

I just found out that, the output by dvips -Ppdf contains some warnings and errors, such as

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.....
mktexpk: `mf-nowin -progname=mf \mode:=dpdfezzz; mag:=0+5920/(2*4000); nonstopmode; input cmr10' failed to make cmr10.5920pk.                                                                      dvips: Font cmr10 at 5920 not found; scaling 600 instead.
</usr/share/texmf-dist/fonts/pk/ljfour/public/cm/dpi600/cmr10.pk>
kpathsea: Running mktexpk --mfmode ljfour --bdpi 8000 --mag 0+5920/(2*4000) --dpi 5920 cmsy10
mktexpk: Mismatched mode ljfour and resolution 8000; ignoring mode.                          
mktexpk: Running mf-nowin -progname=mf \mode:=dpdfezzz; mag:=0+5920/(2*4000); nonstopmode; input cmsy10
This is METAFONT, Version 2.718281 (TeX Live 2009/Arch Linux)                                          
! Enormous number has been reduced.

I googled about some lines, it seems that dvips can not find some fonts in Type 1. But these fonts do exist in the /usr/share/..../type1/... directory. I'm new to latex and don't understant what the problem is. I removed all texlive packages and reinstall them. Then dvips works perfectly and the pdf file is as good as miktex in windows.

Sorry for starting this thread. Your suggestions give me a lot of hints. Thank you.