On Tue, 2002-08-27 at 10:29, Michael Wallis wrote: > Sander Pool wrote: > > > And generating PDFs is quite expensive ($130 or so according to > > shopper.com). > > That seems to be fore two versions back Adobe Acrobat v5. It would let > you produce unlimeted PDFs. Seems quite a reasonable price if someone > in the group wanted to be the Document Converter or the Librarian. > > > Perhaps this is a free method of creating PS files. Print to a virtual PS > > printer and redirect to file. Are there cross-platform viewers for these > > files? > > As has been pointed out, PS is a printing language and not that good > for technical drawings.
There is Free Software (as in speech *and* beer) for creating PDFs and PostScript files. Adobe manages to charge so much because most Windows users already expect to pay for the most basic of software. On most UN*X systems, PostScript is the language sent to the print queue, and the host uses a host-based PostScript interpreter to create output suitable for printers that don't support it. This interpreter (usually GhostScript, which is free and exists for windows) can also output to a window or raster graphics file. As for creating PostScript in the first place, you're talking basically "print to file," and if your software does not have such an option, throw it out. See <http://www.printstop.com/Tipsheets/2Dprntdi.html>. Dunno if this actually works, because I don't have a Windows box to test it on. PostScript is *not* a "printing language." It is Turing complete and has been used for a heck of a lot more than printing. One might argue that it's a "graphics language." The argument against *both* PDF and PostScript is that they are not designed to be editable. On the other hand, there is Free Software for converting both to editable formats. I have no problem with exchanging files as turbocad, as long as they are also available in an open format that is supported by Free Software. Xfig, dia, and qcad are all acceptable to me, as well as PDF and PostScript and SVG.
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