Typeface printing sharpness

[Greg Bicky]

V1 & V2 Affinity Publisher, Photo and Designer seem to have a problem with printing text matter as sharp as can be done using a simple word program.

Even converting to curves produces uneven thickness in typefaces when printing with an expensive postscript laser printer.

[MikeTO]

Hi Greg, I've never experienced this issue myself with my HP PostScript laser and any version of Affinity.

Affinity doesn't rasterize the text, your PostScript printer does that. Any sharpness issues should be with the printer and not with Affinity.

It's possible there's an issue with your printer driver setup and the page is being rasterized by the driver before going to the printer, and that's where the issue lies.

Could you please share which operating system you're using (macOS Ventura, Windows 11, etc.), which printer, and which driver? Examples of fonts that have the problem if it's not all fonts? And maybe a photo of a printed text page that illustrates the problem? It would be good to do a test with basic PostScript fonts such as Helvetica/Arial and Times vs. some non-standard but common fonts such as Adobe Garamond or Caslon.

[Greg Bicky]

Thanks Mike,

I had thought of that possibility with the printer driver. However, while aware of how the Canon Multi-function Printer rasterizes text, I am puzzled why simpler programs such as Apple Pages prints sharp text from my Mac mini M1 Desktop.

Will send scans later if you require.

Regards, Greg

[MikeTO]

3 hours ago, Greg Bicky said:

Thanks Mike,

I had thought of that possibility with the printer driver. However, while aware of how the Canon Multi-function Printer rasterizes text, I am puzzled why simpler programs such as Apple Pages prints sharp text from my Mac mini M1 Desktop.

Will send scans later if you require.

Regards, Greg

I don't have experience with Canon printers so I won't be too much help and it's been eons since I last created printer drivers. Which model are you using?

Here are some things you can do for a more standardized test.

Create a test doc like this:

Times 8pt     Garamond 8pt
Times 10pt    Garamond 10pt
Times 12pt.    Garamond 12pt
etc.

Format the left column in Times and the right in Adobe Garamond Pro which is bundled with macOS. Times is sturdy, Garamond has some delicate lines. Copy the text from Affinity to Pages or vice versa and ensure it's the same.

Print from both apps and label the print outs to keep them straight. Then print to PDF from both apps. Then export to PDF from both apps. Compare all four PDFs on screen and then print all four PDFs with Preview. Compare the four printed PDFs with the two documents printed directly from Pages and Publisher.

That should give you a good comparison.