Microsoft KB Archive/22299

Purpose of Character Width Tables

PSS ID Number: Q22299 Article last modified on 11-02-1994

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MS-DOS

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The reason for the Character Width Tables in the PRD is as follows:

The Character Width Tables are used by Word internally so that Word knows how many characters to put on each line, and how large to make the spaces between words so that text will justify and columns will be aligned. Word does not use the character widths to tell the printer how far to move the printhead for each character. Word simply sends each character, and the printer knows, based on which character it has received, how far to move the printhead.

When doing margins and indents, justifying text, and aligning columns, however, Word does tell the printer how large to make the spaces between words. When printing a line, Word refers to the widths in the width table and calculates how large the spaces around each word (including margins) on that line should be, taking into account page width, margins, indents, tabs, and justification. In order to actually print the spaces between words, Word uses the space character and byte:18 (set character spacing) to print out the proper amount of blank space.

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================================================================ Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1994.