On Tue, 2006-03-28 at 21:05 +0200, Sebastian Rittau wrote:
> Two points to consider:
>
> * PostScript is the standard output format in the natural sciences
> and mathematics community. (Probably due to the prominence of
> LaTeX and dvips.) Also, since it's understood by many
> (semi-)professional printers it is often used for production of
> papers and preprints or as an intermediate format. On the other
> hand the only applications that would fit into this category are
> probably word processors, so general PostScript support is not
> necessarily needed.
> * PDF and PostScript have a slightly different application, in my
> opinion. PDF is used for "web publishing", i.e. stuff that's to
> be read online, but can also be printed out. It has lots of
> features that don't make sense on paper (links or automatic
> table of contents, for example). PS on the other hand is the
> lingua franca for communication with printers (the hardware
> kind). If you've got something as PS on Linux you can print it,
> transform it, do all kinds of silly stuff that falls into the
> "print preparation" category. It's a format very well suited for
> a (printer independent) "Print to file" option.
An interesting counter-point is that we designed our own wedding
invites, and when we got them printed the printers (a very large chain
in England called Prontoprint or something) wanted source documents in
PDF. They accepted PostScript if required but preferred PDF, as the
documents are less complicated, less prone to being targeting at
particular printers, and generally easier to print.
The same happened when I got some artwork printed on A2 card at another
large chain (Kallkwik this time): they claimed to accept Postscript but
when pushed (by mailing them CUPS postscript) admitted they import the
Postscript into Adobe Illustrator, so really want AI files. Or PDF of
course. I ended up sending PDF as neither Inkscape or CUPS would write
PostScript close enough to the PostScript that AI read.
Ross
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Ross Burton mail: ross burtonini com
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