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+\vsize108pt
+\article{How well do you know your CM fonts?}
+I am sometimes surprised at the uncritical way in which people use
+Computer Modern fonts, especially on 300\,dpi laser printers.
+There are two problems:
+{\vadjust{\vfill\eject}}
+\bi CM is a rather lightweight face, and
+it seems to break up quite quickly at low resolution;
+\bi most
+people use a small set of fonts, magnifying them on demand, rather than
+having a correct font for every point size needed.
+
+\vfill\eject
+\noindent The reason often
+quoted for the latter is the disc space that fonts take up, but we
+should recall that only extra {\tt tfm} files are needed, as the {\tt pk} (or
+{\tt pxl} or {\tt gf} font files will differ little in size between cmr10
+magnified 3 times, and cmr17.
+
+In an effort to show the differences between the `correct' font
+sizes and the magnified fonts, I have
+generated a set of tables designed to show a \LaTeX\ user what he or
+she can expect to see at all the supported sizes and font styles; a
+comparison between the first table (page 33), generated with the default
+fonts (frequent magnifications), and the second (%
+this page), using fonts generated at the right design sizes, should demonstrate
+even to the casual eye that the difference is considerable.
+
+It is instructive to compare these Computer Modern
+tables with the third table (page 35), generated using \PS\ fonts -- the
+reader is left to decide which of the three he/she finds preferable.
+
+
+The `true-sized' \LaTeX\ fonts can be accessed by building a new
+\LaTeX\ with a revised `lfonts.tex'
+based on fonts using John Sauter's scripts a time-consuming, but
+interesting, exercise. The Aston archive contains\nl
+{\tt[tex-archive.fonts.sauter]}\nl
+to enable the `true-size' fonts to be built,
+and\nl
+{\tt [tex-archive.latex.contrib]lfonts.moretrue}
+\vfill\eject\noindent
+to allow \LaTeX\ to be rebuilt to take advantage of them.
+
+It had been intended to print these tables with a comparative set at
+1270\,dpi printed on a phototypesetter; unfortunately, experiments so
+far have simply produced VM errors on the \PS\ interpreter on the Linotron
+300. If the charts ever appear, they will be made available to \TeXline.
+\author{\sl Sebastian Rahtz}
+\vfill\eject
+%Computer Science
+%University
+%Southampton S09 5NH
+
+%spqr@uk.ac.soton.ecs