Hi Ralph, I don’t see any pixels in the PDF file when I typeset your code snipet (on MacOS 11.7.10). Here is what I get. Best regards: Otared

On 13 Jun 2024, at 13:10, Ralph wrote:

Hello,

I’m relatively new to ConTeXt (version 2024.05.31, LMTX, standalone) and really enjoy learning it so far, but I have one little problem with the appearance of horizontal bars in math mode.

It seems the way ConTeXt displayed horizontal extensible bars in math mode some time ago (as used in \frac, \sqrt, \overbar, ...) was similar to the way LaTeX (PDFLaTeX and LuaLaTeX) and Plain TeX handled this, but it has changed since then. Instead of one bar there are now multiple characters attached to each other.

This makes it look more consistent with the font, but unfortunately it doesn’t display well in any PDF viewer I’ve tried (on Linux, so I’ve not tried Adobe Acrobat Reader). The bars look dotted, I guess it’s due to anti-aliasing (the dots disappear when anti-aliasing is disabled, but then of course everything looks pixelated). Two screenshots are attached (different zoom levels in PDF viewer) so that you know what I’m talking about.

Source: \setuppapersize[S3] \starttext \startformula \sqrt{a^2 + b^2} = \frac{1000 \cdot c}{1000} \stopformula \stoptext

Is there a way to switch to the old bars for documents viewed mainly on screens, or is there any other way to improve their appearance? I couldn’t find any documentation on this, so I would be very thankful if somebody here could help out.

Best, Ralph

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Otared Kavian e-mail: otared@gmail.com Phone: +33 6 88 26 70 95

On 6/13/2024 10:04 PM, Otared Kavian wrote:

Hi Ralph,

I don’t see any pixels in the PDF file when I typeset your code snipet (on MacOS 11.7.10). Here is what I get. No problems on windows on chrome-os either. Mikael S and I checked it on his linux box and one can indeed see anti aliasing when taking a screen dump (depends on resolution).

So it's a linux rendering issue when taking dumps. That said: we can't do anything about it. Using rules (traditional approach) is pretty bad in screen dumps and even regular rendering, depending on zoom; there one has interaction between the font rendering and other graphic elements (rules). Btw, vertical extensibles are not different (take the bracket which has similar constructs). Interesting is that it is straight blob connections that can show these occasional gray pixels and it only seems to happen with a little overlap. Kind of a bug we think. Hans ps. One reason when I always use (x)ubuntu when i have to use a linux desktop is that it always was set up right wrt rendering fonts and anti aliasing. I might need to check that. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | www.pragma-ade.nl | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------

On 6/14/2024 9:35 AM, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:

Am 13.06.24 um 23:13 schrieb Hans Hagen via ntg-context:

...

On 6/13/2024 10:04 PM, Otared Kavian wrote:

...

Hi Ralph,

I don’t see any pixels in the PDF file when I typeset your code snipet (on MacOS 11.7.10). Here is what I get. No problems on windows on chrome-os either. Mikael S and I checked it on his linux box and one can indeed see anti aliasing when taking a screen dump (depends on resolution).

So it's a linux rendering issue when taking dumps.

Not only. It also happens with all(?) PDF viewers on MacOS – at least 10.14 and 10.15, can anyone confirm with current versions?

So it’s dependend on the screen rendering, anti aliasing settings (that you usually can’t influence).

It doesn’t affect printing – or does it for anyone? I can imagine printing from Firefox, i.e. pdf.js, is affected, since it prints only in screen resolution. it's not related to math then, as there are also ligatures built this way, although often they often are less sensitive to thsi due to generous overlaps (unless they use a sequence of connecting strokes in

hm, so i have to stick to windows for viewing (and an ancient hardware laptop in order to avoid copilot and recall) but i'll check ubuntu anyway the same direction) also keep in mind that looking at a blown up character is not that realistic (for instance a traditional bitmap font might look great at 600 or 1200 dpi at intended size so zooming in showing raggedness is not the normal way to see it) btw, if one wants to observe inaccuracy, just zoom in in graphics made by drawing programs (even of famous companies) Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | www.pragma-ade.nl | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------

Hi, thank you all for your replies so far. I guess I’ll have to live with that for now (of course this isn’t really a problem, but a bit unpleasant to look at when you’re used to the straight lines in LaTeX). Just wanted to add that I can see this artifacts quite clearly on a 13 inch 1080p screen in the PDF viewer (depends on zoom level, on some zoom levels I see nothing) and not only when enlarging a screenshot. After all, it’s visible in my attached screenshots even if displayed in their original resolution. (Naming of my screenshots wasn’t very clear, zoomed.png is zoomed-in in the pdf viewer, not a zoomed-in screenshot.) Best, Ralph

Old mailing list post ... I do not see any issues whatsoever with any viewer under FreeBSD, btw. Alan On Fri, 14 Jun 2024 11:44:34 +0200 Hans Hagen via ntg-context wrote:

...

So it’s dependend on the screen rendering, anti aliasing settings (that you usually can’t influence).

hm, so i have to stick to windows for viewing (and an ancient hardware laptop in order to avoid copilot and recall) but i'll check ubuntu anyway

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