Dynamic Optical Scaling and Variable-Sized Characters

First, a survey on optical scaling is carried out, both from the traditional point of view and from that of today’s digital typography. Then the special case of large characters, such as braces or integral signs, is considered. It is shown that such variable sized symbols should be computed at print time in order to approach the quality of metal typesetting. Finally, an implementation of such dynamic fonts, still in progress in the Grif editor, is described.