From dave@rc.gc.ca Tue Jul 22 18:24:10 1997 Received: from blackhole.rc.gc.ca (blackhole.rc.gc.ca [205.150.42.41]) by dkuug.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id SAA15182 for ; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 18:24:01 +0200 Received: from hodgson.rc.gc.ca (hodgson.rc.gc.ca [142.136.252.250]) by blackhole with SMTP (DuhMail/2.0) id MAA27507; Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:21:19 -0400 From: "D. J. Blackwood" X-Mailer: SCO System V Mail (version 3.2) To: SC22WG15@dkuug.dk, baker@dad.cs.fsu.edu Subject: Re: (SC22WG15.1060) liaison from WG9 Date: Tue, 22 Jul 97 12:17:56 EDT Message-ID: <9707221217.aa03414@hodgson.rc.gc.ca> > I received the following for comment via the WG9 mailing list. I > might be of interest to WG15 also. --Ted Baker (WG9 Liaison) > ... > Postscript has two important advantages over PDF: > - - Virtually all document or word processing systems are able to produce > PostScript documents. One simply uses a PostScript printer driver with > its output directed to a file rather than a device. Few systems, if any, > support the direct production of PDF. Instead, the output document > (ironically, often in Postscript form) must be converted to PDF by the > use of a program which must be purchased. The price of the program is > between $200 and $300 US. I'd like to add to that that Adobe does not produce any PDF software for my UNIX/POSIX platform and therefore I am unable to produce PDF files at all for any price. I can read PDF files but the public domain reader is very buggy (some documents I can only see page one) and it will not print on my system. On the other hand I can easily produce, view, and print PostScript files at zero additional expense. Of course I could always purchase a Wintel system or a more mainstream Adobe-supported UNIX system but that kind of defeats the whole purpose of a POSIX standard then, doesn't it? -- David J. Blackwood Manager, Internet Services Room 2169, 875 Heron Road Information Highway Initiatives Division Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0L5 Revenue Canada Voice: 613 957-9305 Fax: 613 941-2257 Internet: dave@rc.gc.ca