Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 00:13:04 -0800
From: Al Stevens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: adobe and DOS? a tad off topic
Walter Scott wrote:
> Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 21:45:00 -0500
> >From: Walter Scott
> Subject: Re: adobe and DOS? a tad off topic
>
> Mike:
>
> I appreciate the information. It appears, though, that this
> software will not run in a purely DOS environment. That could be a
> limitation for those not having X Windows, OS/2, UNIX, etc. on
> their computer. Anything you've run across that'll run in plain-old
> DOS?
>
> Walter Scott
Well, I'm not Mike, but perhaps I could suggest that you have a look at the
GhostScript package - which is free (under the GNU license, I believe). The
documentation on the web site describes it as being capable of reading PDF files. I
seem to recall reading somewhere in the information about GS that it is only capable
of reading PDF files in the foreward direction - you can't scroll backwards with it,
or something. I don't recall reading how compatible it is with PDF files created with
later versions of the Acrobat package, though GS is still under active development.
GS's primary function is to work with PostScript files. The GS package looks like a
real beast to install - there appears to be a separate package for each operating
system with the appropriate executable inside, and then several support packages that
have to be downloaded and merged with the executable. I downloaded the whole thing
about a year ago, plus some documentation from various "fan" pages, and filled u!
p five 1.44MB disks. Haven't got around to trying it yet.
The official GhostScript web site is at:
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
For general info on PDF, visit:
http://www.pdfzone.com/
particularly:
http://www.pdfzone.com/products/software/
A couple of notes on the post I made yesterday...
The Acroread viewer for DOS requires a VGA monitor, and I THINK it wants 16-color
minimum (I can't recall right now) - the 1.4MB acroread.exe is a self-installing
package that will refuse to install if it doesn't see what it wants. The version for
Windows 3.x also insists on VGA, but once installed works great under EGA. I used to
install this for people by popping in my color VGA card, installing the package, and
then putting their EGA card back in (having to change the video drivers at each stage,
of course). There's a lot of Windows 3.x software from idiot programmers that behaves
this way, most notably the Navigator and Explorer browsers. EGA and "plain-vanilla"
VGA both use a 16-color pallette, so I fail to see any valid reason for this behaviour
by programmers - The software just has bigger text and images on EGA because of the
fewer scan lines with that mode. WARNING: If you run the DOS version of AcroRead under
EGA after installation, it just crashes the system.
...If you don't mind me getting back on the topic of the mail list, NetTamer works
quite well under EGA, and you can usually pick up an old EGA monitor and card for
about ten bucks at any Ham Radio swap meet ;-)
Good Luck!
Alan - http://members.xoom.com/kenoraradio/
http://members.xoom.com/camp807/
> Quoting Mike Millen to Walter Scott
> and Possibly the Net-Tamer List
> Group on 16-Mar-00 at 10:50 PST:
>
> MM> WS>This software will handle the latest version of PDF files?
> MM>
> MM> I've not done a survey, but it's handled every .pdf I've tried
> MM> it with so far (and most of them have been less than a year old
> MM> so they were likely to have been created with the latest version).
> MM>
> MM> HST, it seems to be thrown a bit by embedded images. It works
> MM> perfectly with text.
> MM>
> MM> [......]
> MM>
> MM> [From XPDF documentation]
> MM>
> MM> Xpdf is a viewer for Portable Document Format (PDF) files. (These are
> MM> also sometimes also called 'Acrobat' files, from the name of Adobe's
> MM> PDF software.) Xpdf runs under the X Window System on UNIX, VMS, and
> MM> OS/2.
--
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