Antialiasing and Prism Windows

What is antialiasing?

Starting with version 6, Prism Windows uses antialiasing to improve the appearance of graphs on screen. When curves or lines are drawn in black on a white background, antialiasing fills in gray pixels in the corner to remove the jagged look. his makes graphs look much better on screen. Here is a screen shot from Prism 5 Windows without antialiasing. Note the ragged look of the regression line.  

And here is a screenshot of the same graph in Prism 6, with much smoother looking lines. 

    

Antialiasing shows up on screen, and when you export or copy in EMF+ format. Antialiasing does not affect how graphs or layouts are exported in any format other than EMF. It does not affect WMF, PDF, EPS, PNG or JPG. It does not affect how printed graphs look. 

Prism mac has always used antialiasing. With Prism Windows, it was new in Prism 6. Prism Windows has an option to turn antialiasing off. Prism Mac does not.

 

Antialiasing and horizontal or vertical lines

Prism 6.00 and 6.01 also sometimes use antialiasing when drawing horizontal or vertical lines, for example in the survival graph staircase curves, or the borders of bars. There is no advantage to antialiasing for vertical or horizontal lines, and it can make those lines look a bit fuzzy.  This is fixed in 6.02.

How to avoid the antialiased look in exported or copied graphs

Here are three alternative ways to avoid antialiasing:

• When exporting, don't the EMF format in Prism 6.00 and 6.01. In 6.02, don't the EMF+ format. 
• When copying to the clipboard (or using the Send command) set the File tab of preferences to not use EMF (6.00 or 6.01) or EMF+ (6.02).
• With Prism 6.02 and later, you can turn off antialiasing if you want to. The choice is in the middle of the View tab of Preferences.

Details about antialiasing in copied and exported graphs

Antialiasing is apparent on screen, and also when you export (or copy) graphs or layouts in EMF+ format (but no other format).

Prism 6.00 and 6.01 offer a choice of "EMF" which is EMF+ (different than Prism 5 used).

Prism 6.02 offers a choice of old EMF (matches Prism 5) or EMF+. The old EMF format does not include antialiasing.

When exporting, choose the format (and the default) in the Export dialog. 

When copying a graph or layout to the clipboard, or sending it to Word or PowerPoint, the format choice (EMF, WMF or both, and which style of EMF) is determined by the setting at the bottom of the File&Printer tab of the Preferences dialog.  

How to turn off antialiasing

With Prism Mac, it is not possible. 

With Prism Windows, we added a new option to 6.02 to allow you to turn off antialiasing if you want to. The choice is in the middle of the View tab of Preferences.