On 26 May 2005 at 18:57, Darcy James Argue wrote: > I'm not sure I'm following you, Eric. I'm not familiar with > PageMaker, but any publishing app ought to be agnostic about file > types. If it can embed EPS, it should be able to embed other graphic > types, including PDF -- right?
I don't find your logic persuasive. EPS and PDF are definitely a different kind of graphics format than TIFF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, PICT and so forth. Both are wrappers around PostScript output, and PS is a *page* description language, not a graphics format. Yes, it's been adapted to devices other than printers (the ones that produce pages), with the advent of Display PostScript, but it's still a very, very different type of graphics format. And PDF, since it has a wrapper around it designed to make it a standalone file format (as opposed to EPS, which by defintion does not need to be standalone, as it's entirely designed for *embedding* in other documents, hence the name, of of course). Put another way, one is a document encapsulating PS, the other a graphic format encapsulating PS. Now, I do think that the argument that PDF is now native to OS X is a persuasive one in terms of arguing what Finale should support on OS X. However, there is no such native support in Windows, nor do I know if the next major release of Windows, Longhorn, will incorporate PDF support. Given that MS is trying to create a competing standard, Metro (see http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/story/0,10801,101 344,00.html, all on one line, of course), I strongly doubt it. Thus, MakeMusic would be required to support two completely different formats on the two different versions of Finale. That goes against the recent history of the design of Finale, which has been as far as possible identical in functionality on both Windows and Mac (though the UI may have slight variations appropriate to the platform). But Metro does not appear to me to really be the same thing as PDF, as it is just a document format that can be rendered by browsers (XML with style sheets), rather than a wrapper around a page description language. This would make it considerably less suitable for embedding, I would think. Of course, MS is describing it as a page description language, but that looks like typical Microsoft FUD to me. On the other hand, it's pretty good FUD, since it does hit all the buzzwords necessary to replicate the functionality of PostScript as seen in OS X, and is said to be wrapped up with MS's Avalon technology (which is display technology, a response to Quartz and Display PostScript, if I'm reading it right). I hate Microsoft. On the other hand, I also hate Adobe Acrobat Reader. It has always been a steaming pile with a piss-poor user interface that really isn't very well designed for the task it is supposed to perform. Maybe a little competition would improve it, but I just don't see much utility in multiplying document formats like this. But I digress. It is relevant to the future of Finale, though, assuming MakeMusic is still producing Finale for Windows after the release of Longhorn. And it doesn't bode well for the possibility of cross-platform PDF embedding. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
