On Wed, Aug 20, 2003 at 07:45:33PM -0400, Leonard Rosenthol wrote: | | Because Postscript is dead. It hasn't been updated in over 6 | years, and Adobe themselves are slowly moving towards PDF-based | solutions, including printing. PostScript is far from dead. You would be banishing the entire publishing industry if you say PostScript is dead :-) Are you sure it hasn't been updated for so long? Take a look at the PostScript 3 reference manual. | Also, Postscript is a programming language. You would need | to implement a full parser and interpreter for it. NOT a fun thing. | | You'd be better off heading down the PDF route...All the | benefits of PS, but a LOT easier to implement and MUCH more | extensible and supported. Implementing a full PDF parser is definitely much harder than a full PostScript parser. PDF more or less encompasses PostScript. PostScript is much more widely supported than PDF. It is just as extensible as PDF as far as imaging goes. | >The major one, of course, is that the file would be essentialy | >"auto renderable" - no need of GIMP, neither of any other program, | >to get it printed. | | Assuming a PS printer... | | But most users either have PCL or raster-based printers... Most printers are raster based at the core, except for certain plotters (which are very interesting to watch BTW). 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). Others implement it on the printer itself, such as a few printers in the HP LaserJet family. More or less, most people are able to print PostScript on their printers on most major operating systems. | >Since PSD and TIFF are used by ADOBE, ADOBE also has a program that | >makes use of postscript subsets.. I just do not remember which file | >type it is. | | Versions of Adobe Illustrator <= 8 used a subset of EPS | (Encapsulated Postscript) as its native file format. As of version | 9, it now uses PDF as the file format. | | | >It can have color profiling support - it is on the specifications. | >It has support for multiple compression standards... (ok, maybe you | >have to encode the decompressor algorithm inside the file as well if | >you want something too different) | | PS doesn't support "plug-in" filters... As compared to PDF? In the context of the original poster's comment, what did you have in mind for using plug-in filters? How is the PDF plug-in support useful in any way with image representation? The original poster was talking about color profiles. Mukund
