Proportional Fonts and wrapping

["Haas, David" <dhaas@CASECORP.COM>]

This problem has plagued our project from the start of using SQR.

We are using all proportional font type printing in our price lists.  The
way we have it set up, all of the letters that are to be used in the text of
the price list have a width estimate mapped to it.  For example, the letter
'H' would have a width of 50 attached to it, the letter 'h' would have 35
and the letter 'I' would have 15.  We then accumulate these widths to know
when we reach the right hand margin amount and then wrap to the next line.

The problem we are encountering is that these 'estimates' of the character
widths are causing the right side of the text to be cut off.  Say for
example we have the following paragraphs:

*****************************************************
I am trying to get some sort of solution to
fix the problem that I am currently taking
a look at.

I AM TRYING TO GET SOME SORT OF SOLUTION
TO FIX THE PROBLEM THAT I AM CURRENTLY
TAKING A LOOK AT.
*****************************************************

The first paragraph prints fine.  But then the second paragraph with all
caps gets cut off on the right side (i.e. the words/partial words 'OF
SOLUTION' and 'URRENTLY' will go past the right margin and can't be seen.
It appears that the widths for the uppercase may be a little smaller than
they should be.  Generally speaking, it appears that all of the estimations
are off (either above or below) for all characters, which is causing the
problem above.

One solution I tried was to decrease the right hand margin amount so that
the 'all caps' text fit on the page.  It worked, but then the other
paragraph wraps at the middle of the page, which clients found unacceptable.
This causes the script to be extremely data dependent.  I make a change in
the script to fix one wrapping problem which then causes another.  This
happens all the time and clients are restless.

There are two options I can think of that will either minimize this problem
or do away with it all together.  One is to re-write the code to accommodate
a fixed font similar to the proportional font that we now use, Arial.
However, I am having a problem finding a fixed font even close to this, and
the re-write effort would be huge (to be done sometime in the future).  The
other is to reestimate the widths which in itself would be time consuming
unless someone had some sort of table that maps actual character widths to
characters.

I hope that someone has had this same problem and has fixed it because I'm
at a crossroad.

Thanks in advance,
David A. Haas
Case Corporation