[Desktop_printing] Microsoft XPS specification

[PLinnell]

On Friday 21 April 2006 19:18, Giuseppe Ghibò wrote:
> Craig Bradney wrote:
>  >[...]
>  >
>  >>No, Scribus uses a similar approach but not the same code as
>  >> pstoedit.
>  >>
>  >>The idea is to redefine basic PS operators to write their
>  >> arguments and the
>  >>current graphics state to a temporary file and then interpret
>  >> that file.
>
> Is this approach robust?
> Also what about transparencies?

PS3 strictly defined does not have transparency in the same way PDF 
1.4+ does.

It is robust, provided you have a newer GS (8.5+ preferred), along 
with having your Fontmap.gs setup properly. One of several reasons we 
nudge where we can the inclusion of the most to date Ghostscript in 
linux distributions and by extension ESP-Ghostscript. 

We even wrote a howto to install a 2nd Ghostscript parallel to the 
distro supplied one as Scribus can use the latest features in GS 8.5x 
and overall gives users better results in imports and print previews.

Ghostscript 8.5+ has all around better support for PDF and PDF 1.4+ in 
particular.

>
>  >>We don't recommend using Scribus as a PS or PDF editing tool
>  >> because it doesn't handle all aspects that well; maybe pstoedit
>  >> is more sophisticated
>  >>in those areas. Especially bitmap import isn't finished and
>  >> currently all
>  >>text is converted to vector paths. The current internals of
>  >> Scribus make editing
>  >>thousands of vector paths very slow and resource intensive.
>
> you mean more vector paths than what really needed or used? Because
> often EPS graphics produced by programs (think for instance to
> EPS output from math programs like matlab, mathematica, etc.),
> have plenty of vector paths overlapping each other which might
> be useless, but they are in the PS code.
> What I've also not yet seem (maybe exists) is a PS optimizer
> which simplify/removes all the hidden and overlapping lines/paths
> (think for instance to what is currently done with FontForge). For
> editing I think this could be a nice feature (well apart defining
> an elliptical pen bezier stroke in term of an outline closed path
> [which is very hard from math points of view]).
>
>  > Err.. we do recommend it for PS/EPS, however it comes with the
>  > acceptance of the issues with text and embedded images. The
>  > PS/EPS importer generally does a very good job. PDF is another
>  > story.
>
> Well, couldn't PDF be converted on EPS on the fly?

You could, but you may lose transparency in the process. PDF 1.4 and 
1.5 have features and operators which simply cannot be easily 
replicated in EPS or PS.

Editing PDF is kind of a holy grail for many. However, it is not a 
trivial job and there are really only a small handful of very special 
tools which do it correctly. The most well known ones are special and 
expensive Acrobat Pro plugins. 
>
> Bye
> Giuseppe.

HTH<
Peter