[Desktop_printing] Agenda proposal: Replace PostScript by PDF asjob transfer format

[Hin-Tak Leung]

--- Till Kamppeter <till.kamppeter at gmx.net> wrote:

> Another question: There are often problems with pre-processing
> PostScript (like re-ordering pages, scaling, n-up, ...) due to lack of
> DSC conformity. How easy/difficult is it to process PDF files?
> 
>    Till

Yes, I think the reasons Ralph stated are better ones for switching
to pdf :-). 

Reordering pages, scaling, n-up are much easier with PDF than with postscript,
I think; that's just because Adobe had learned from postscript and made pdf
having metadata for describing the overall structure, and
pdf's are also randomly seekable/navigable based on the metadata.
(the xref table at the end and what not).



> 
> 
> Ralph Giles wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 09, 2006 at 03:00:32PM -0800, Bastian, Waldo wrote:
> > 
> > 
> >>So far the case for PDF seems to be rooted in a vague notion that xpdf
> >>is better maintained than ghostscript.
> > 
> > 
> > I don't think this is a good way to state the case. As a Postscript 
> > interpreter and rasterizer, Ghostscript is *extremely* mature, and 
> > Adobe is not longer updating the Postscript specification, so there is 
> > little actual need for code updates. As you suggest, I think the 
> > argument is actually in the other direction from a security and code 
> > stability point of view.
> > 
> > But if we were happy with code stability, we'd still be using lpr. :)
> > 
> > No, I think the case for migrating the print workflow to PDF rests 
> > entirely on its features. In my view, the most important aspects of
> > this are:
> > 
> >  a) better colour accuracy, especially with deep images and ICC profile
> >     support. This is essential for graphic arts work, and helpful for
> >     just printing people's digital photos.
> > 
> >  b) native support for transparency, which greatly improves both file
> >     size and scalability with resolution over Postscript for transparent
> >     sources. Vector graphics with transparency are coming into 
> >     increasing artistic use and it is important to support them well.
> > 
> >  c) portability. PDF is designed as a portable format much more than
> >     Postscript is/was and that makes it a more natural format for
> >     applications and drawing libraries to produce, and one of the
> >     major document formats users will want to print. Very, very
> >     few new users are working with Postscript files directly.
> > 
> > That's why we at Ghostscript believe it's important to switch, despite 
> > the pain of new code and chasing Adobe's updates to the standard.
> > 
> > FWIW,
> >  -r
> > 
> > 
> 
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