> I worked in an advertising company for sometime in Goa. Usually when we > gave out the files for printing, the printers were satisfied by the > Postscript files. However some of the printers wanted a Corel Draw file, > though I suspect in the end they turned them to PS files. PDF are > usually considered low resolution of what you will be getting. They are > only good for previewing.
some clarifications: a coreldraw fileformat, and ultimately any other file sent to press, has to be outputted as a postscript file. that is the only option. in 1989, M$ and apple formed an alliance to create an alternative to postscript, called TrueImage. the truetype fonts that all of us are familiar with today, were born as the first step to 'legitimize' trueImage. However, both companies abandoned trueImage. so if you use truetype fonts in your publishing workflow, these fonts are 'wrapped' as postscript fonts at the output end, and then ripped into pure postscript inside the outputting device. this format-type is called 'type 42' fonts. coreldraw bases its images in postscript. however, its parsing of postscript is imho, quite lousy, and leads to several problems at outputting. pdf was born ten years ago to perform a pre-flight check on files meant for outputting. think of pdf as the dvi format. if the corel file could output a pdf through its postscript file, then the file would output at the printer. ditto for other fileformats, including tex files. however, within 2 years, pdf grew to become the defacto pre-flight check and the final output fileformat as well. worldwide, people just prefer pdf files. in india, the process is taking time, due to the wrong belief that pdf is low resolution and only good for previewing. this thinking is finally changing. incidentally, how many of you know that outlook magazine is edited and produced every week in india but is sent through high-speed access to mumbai as pdf files where it is printed flawlessly at a very high and professional-level of quality, and distributed across the country? that is the true power of pdf. > > As far as your printer is concerned, I think he is insisting on having a > scanned copy of the ad because his software may not import PDF. Ask him > if he can use PS files or better still check out if yourself if his > software can import PS files. using some tools, you can easily convert ps to pdf and viceversa. imho, both are two sides of the same coin. > > Again I should point out that if you convert your docs to PDFs and then > convert to PS there will be a loss in quality. nope. pdf is the container of ps. you could choose options for the conversion that could enhance or modify some aspects. but mostly, pdf to ps does not lead to any loss in quality. i am eagerly looking forward to the day when the opensource community starts creating professional tools for design and publishing based on pdf and ps, using ghostscript. :-) LL _______________________________________________ ilugd mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd
