On Wed, Aug 20, 2003 at 07:45:33PM -0400, Leonard Rosenthol wrote: | Because Postscript is dead.
PostScript is far from dead. You would be banishing the entire publishing industry if you say PostScript is dead :-)
I guess I should say that Postscript is languishing and slowly being phased out in all areas in favor of PDF...
Are you sure it hasn't been updated for so long? Take a look at the PostScript 3 reference manual.
OK, 5 years instead of 6 (1998). But in today's world, that's a HUGE time...
In that same time, PDF has had two MAJOR upgrades (PDF 1.4 and 1.5).
Implementing a full PDF parser is definitely much harder than a full PostScript parser. PDF more or less encompasses PostScript.
You are quite misinformed...
PDF is a static file format of structured objects referenced by a single catalog (cross reference table). It's pretty easy to write a PDF parser - a couple of days at most, which is why there are so many of them. (the hard part is getting all the object management correct for later modification). It has NO variables, loops, conditionals, etc.
Postscript is a full fledged programming language with all that at entails (stack managements, variables, loops, functions, conditionals, turing completeness, etc.).
PostScript is much more widely supported than PDF.
Only as far as direct/native printing goes - that's true.
On the application side, PDF has wider support due to the ease of implementation.
It is just as extensible as PDF as far as imaging goes.
To an extent - there are things that PDF does by default that PS can't do (eg. 16bit images, JPEG2000, JBIG2), and there are areas of PDF that provide extensibility that PS does not.
| But most users either have PCL or raster-based printers...
Most printers are raster based at the core,
Sure, at some point the printer is just putting bits on a page - but only the home-level inkjets are ONLY raster-based. Professional office and prepress printers use a page description language (usually either PCL or PS) to keep traffic down and then rasterize on the device.
Some printing solutions implement the RIP in software on the host computer (such as Ghostscript or Adobe's PressReady -- not sure if the latter has been deprecated by something else).
Very few anymore - but yes, they do exist...
Others implement it on the printer itself, such as a few printers in the HP LaserJet family.
Most implement RIPping on the device itself...
More or less, most people are able to print PostScript on their printers on most major operating systems.
Not out of the box! They would need to install Ghostscript (and associated drivers, which might also require something like GIMP-print).
Leonard -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leonard Rosenthol <mailto:leonardr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> <http://www.lazerware.com>
