Abstract: An approach for positioning a floating object in a workspace of an electronic document is disclosed herein. To accomplish this, the workspace is divided into a plurality of available portions in which floating objects may be positioned. For example, these available portions represent geometrical areas within the workspace that do not include obstacles, such as absolutely positioned objects and other floating objects. The available portions are then evaluated against a plurality of undesirable positioning characteristics in order to determine an optimal position for the floating object within the workspace. The optimal position is then determined to be either a location in the workspace that does not result in any of the undesirable characteristics or, alternatively, a location having the most tolerable of the potentially resultant undesired characteristics.

Abstract: An approach for positioning screen elements on a display screen is disclosed herein. The screen elements represent expressions in a formula and may include one or more glyphs. Optimal positions are determined for the screen elements based on analyzing positional characteristics associated with displaying the screen elements at the resolution supported by the display screen against positional characteristics based on an optimal resolution. This analysis indicates whether the degree of displacement between display of a screen element at the actual resolution and display of the screen element at the optimal resolution would exceed a predetermined threshold level. If not, the screen element is output for display on the display screen based on the positional characteristics associated with the display screen resolution. Otherwise, the positional characteristics based on the actual resolution are modified such that the degree of displacement conforms to the threshold level.

Abstract: A method and system for optimizing the horizontal spacing of superscripts and subscripts in open type font designs is disclosed. The system includes a module for vertically aligning and spacing characters and a module for horizontally aligning characters having differing baselines in accordance with cut-in information stored in font tables corresponding to each individual character in the font. This additional horizontal spacing adjustment capability provides for optimum placement of character glyphs having differing baselines, e.g., superscript or subscript. The method includes placing a first/next character on a baseline, retrieving a next adjacent character, determining whether a cut-in associated with one or both of the characters can be applied between the two characters, and then applying the appropriate cut-in. Ascertaining whether a cut-in may apply may be accomplished by evaluating relative positions of adjacent glyph bounding boxes.

Abstract: A character within a font is enlarged to a desired size by first determining whether the font contains existing or predefined variants of the character having the desired size. If no appropriately sized variant exists, the enlarged character is assembled from a plurality of component glyphs that are stored with the font, wherein the component glyphs include an extender that may be duplicated within the assembled character in order to achieve the desired size. In one embodiment, the font includes tables containing records of the enlarged variants for a particular character, as well as part records for the component glyphs used to assemble the enlarged character.

Abstract: A character within a font is enlarged to a desired size by first determining whether the font contains existing or predefined variants of the character having the desired size. If no appropriately sized variant exists, the enlarged character is assembled from a plurality of component glyphs that are stored with the font, wherein the component glyphs include an extender that may be duplicated within the assembled character in order to achieve the desired size. In one embodiment, the font includes tables containing records of the enlarged variants for a particular character, as well as part records for the component glyphs used to assemble the enlarged character.