Postscript vs. PDF

Subject: Postscript vs. PDF
From: Steven Jong <SteveJong -at- AOL -dot- COM>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 14:51:14 -0500

Angela Howard <angela -at- SB -dot- AOL -dot- COM> commented on my notes on electronic
delivery thusly:

>> We have not found Postscript files to be very portable. What printer
driver
>> do you use to create them? For our print vendor, we have to use a certain
>> printer driver with certain print settings so that their Docutech can read
it,
>> but that same Postscript file will generate printing errors for most of
our
>> customers...

Our print vendor, who probably uses a Docutech printer, specified the Apple
LaserWriter II NTX driver (version 51.8 even). It works for us; I am perhaps
overstating things by saying PostScript is widely portable. In fact, Angela
continued by writing:

>> We've found PDF files to be a better solution. Even though the customer
has
>> to go through the extra step of downloading a (free) reader for them, they
>> are far more portable. And, the customers can select a range of pages to
print
>> if their printer can't handle all the pages at once.

Tim Altom <taltom -at- IQUEST -dot- NET> also contributed a similar opinion. There I
have no experience; maybe they're right! (Maybe I should ask my print
vendor's opinion.)

Finally, The Man himself (David Blyth <dblyth -at- QUALCOMM -dot- COM>) corrected my
statement that PDF files can be incorporated into Web pages. I meant to say,
as he stated himself, that PDF files are "_called_ by Web pages but actually
are still viewed by [Adobe] Acrobat, not a Web browser."

-- Steve

=============================================================
Steven Jong, Documentation Group Leader ("Typo? What tpyo?")
Lightbridge, Inc, 281 Winter St., Waltham, MA 02154 USA
<jong -at- lightbridge -dot- com>, 617.672.4902 [voice], 617.890.2681 [FAX]


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