> I dont think its the idea of generating print quality documents, its just > the way people go about it. People seem to want to be able just > to have this > magic webpage-to-pdf-o-matic (HTML2PDF does a good job, but its > not perfect) > , would you expect the same if you are delivering content to > mobile devices > ? No, of course not. Its a different format and has different requirements > in terms of user experience, just as a paper document does. I guess there are three main aspects: - A way to offer "print friendly versions" of web pages. - A high quality print format. - A portable document format that displays consistently across platforms.
PDF is not the answer if you just want a print friendly version. You are much better off looking at print style sheet. You wont get 110% consistency, but I don't think that's usually essential. If you are looking at "brouchure quality" printing, HTML & CSS are not going to cut it. PDF & PostScript are hard to generate dynamically. SVG & FO are not well supported. This is the gap that I'm concerned about. As far as being a portable document format, with controls on editing, etc... PDF is perfect. > Whats the point of printing out you web page as a pdf with > hyperlinks on it > ? You cant go to those links becuase in print you cant even see where they > are going to. True. > IMHO its about how you architect your site. PDF needs to be treated just > like any other format like SVG, WAP etc etc...via XML. I agree completely, but the only way I know of going XML -> PDF is FO and for that you have to go via SVG or FO to get to the PDF stage. Some other PDF generation methods deal with PostScript which is a nightmare. Other take HTML -> PS -> PDF which is IMHO completely pointless, if you can do the layout in HTML stick with it. > The best example ive > seen so far of achieving this is the apache cocoon project. > http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/ treat your data as data and worry about how > you are going to present the data at the last stage. Apache really are doing some excellent things in a range of areas. Things like Cocoon, Ant and Forrest are pretty innovative. > PDF and PostScript arent for deranged lunatics, they are for printers as > HTML is for browsers. Horses for courses! I completely disagree with that. HTML is in the public domain, its a W3C standard, so are SVG & FO. PDF & PostScript are both owned by Adobe. This is not a moral issue but a practical one & there are two main problems with it: - The (lack of) development of these technologies is in the hands a very small number of people within a single company (Adobe). - Adobe's competitors are very hesitant to touch these technologies, let alone try and support them properly. Cheers Mark ______________ Mark Stanton Technical Director Gruden Pty Ltd Tel: 9956 6388 Mob: 0410 458 201 Fax: 9956 8433 http://www.gruden.com --- You are currently subscribed to cfaussie as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] MX Downunder AsiaPac DevCon - http://mxdu.com/
