Line segments and polygons with more than 256 vertices are printed using the QuickDraw pen. The QuickDraw pen has the following characteristics that are more visible with thicker lines: horizontal and vertical lines print with constant thickness. Diagonal lines will get thicker as the angle of the line moves towards 45¡. For polygons with more than 256 vertices, the endcaps at each vertex will be blunt rather than pointed. The endpoints of lines and polygons might not be blunt. Rather, the endpoints might have a point.
Using the Line tool with the Polygon tool, if you where to draw a thick diagonal line first using the Line tool, then continue the diagonal line using the Polygon tool, the line will look fine on the screen. When printed to a LaserWriter, at the point where the Line tool was changed to the Polygon tool the width of the line will decrease slightly. Again, this is caused by the difference between the QuickDraw and Postscript pens.
The net result is that thick, diagonal lines drawn with either the QuickDraw or Postscript pens will appear differently when printed to a LaserWriter. These differences cannot be corrected or worked around.
With MacDraw II 1.0v4, the QuickDraw pen is used exclusively to draw polygons with the characteristics described above. Polygons with up to 500 vertices could be drawn.
In MacDraw II 1.0v1, v2, v3, all polygons were drawn with the Postscript pen. But, it wasn't possible to print polygons with more than 256 vertices. The LaserWriter would return a Limit Check Postscript error.