Microsoft KB Archive/104921

= PUB: Explanation of WYSIWYG Issues =

Article ID: 104921

Article Last Modified on 8/16/2005

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Publisher 3.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Publisher 2.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Publisher 2.0a

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This article was previously published under Q104921





SUMMARY
This article discusses WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) issues you may encounter while using Microsoft Publisher. WYSIWYG is a display method that shows documents and graphic characters on the screen as they appear when printed. WYSIWYG attempts to duplicate print output as closely as possible but is not always exact.



MORE INFORMATION
Publisher may display text inaccurately at some zoom levels. Items on the screen may appear to be aligned or sized incorrectly. This article discusses why these display anomalies may occur. Most of these problems can occur in any Windows-based application and are not unique to Publisher.

To do precise positioning of objects and text, choose a high zoom level (such as 200 percent). WYSIWYG is much more accurate in high zoom modes.

Low Zoom Levels
At low zoom levels (25 percent, 33 percent) there may not be enough pixels to display text correctly. For example, the baselines of 10-point text at 33 percent zoom need to be 5.3 pixels apart to be displayed accurately. However, nothing can be displayed at a fraction of a pixel, so the text baselines can only be drawn at either 5 pixels or 6 pixels apart, neither one of which looks exactly right when compared to the ruler or the other objects on the page. This problem can occur in Publisher 3.0 if the default greeking feature is turned off.

Printer Fonts
If you are using printer fonts, Publisher may have problems displaying text correctly because there isn't a close enough match between the printer font and the screen font.

Line Length with TrueType Fonts
If you are using TrueType fonts, you may notice that the length of a line of text may look different in full page view than it does in actual size view. This occurs because the TrueType font engine does not scale fonts linearly. For example, when Publisher requests a 10-point font from the TrueType font engine, TrueType provides letters that are taller than they are wide. However, when Publisher requests a 3-point font from the TrueType font engine, so that it can display a page in full page view, TrueType provides letters that are about as wide as they are tall. Because the smaller fonts are disproportionately wide, lines of text may appear to be too long in full page view. Also, centered text may appear uncentered, and tabs may look like they are in the wrong place.

Display problems may also occur because Publisher remaps the selected font to MS Serif if the text displays below a certain point size when zoomed out.

Large Fonts in Banner View
If you are using a 96-dpi screen (with the standard VGA driver) and you are in the 3 percent banner view, you may notice that text is misaligned on the screen. The number of screen pixels per logical inch should be 96 x 3 / 100, or 2.88. This problem occurs because Publisher sometimes rounds this number up to 3 and then multiplies it by a number of inches. This can lead to significant errors in the placement of text, which is especially noticeable when it is centered.

NOTE: WYSIWYG in Windows is still just an approximation, and will continue to be until there are dramatic improvements in video technology.

Additional query words: 2.00 mspub win31 pub20 display screen 2.00a pub3 monitor print printer true type tt levels magnification view views pub97 problems kbprint fonts publication different font quality

Keywords: kbinfo kbusage KB104921

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