Subject: Re: HOWTO

[Janina Sajka]

Nico Kadel-Garcia writes:
> The idea that PDF is meant for printing is a common misconception. It's a
> "Portable Display Format", not a "Portable Printing Format". PDF documents
> often print better than other formats because they're better constructed.

OK, perhaps "meant for" isn't the right verb. But, I didn't want to insult PDF by saying "only good for."

If I'm to criticize the intent behind PDF as you give it, I'd have to call it a a narrowly conceived protocol derived from too constricted a set of use cases. It may do the job for you, and it may even do the job for a majority of people on the planet, but it leaves out a significant minority of users and is consequently inappropriate as a mass publishing protocol. In particular, it's inappropriate in settings such as U.S Government use under the strictures of the law popularly known as Sec. 508 (see http://www.afb.org/AboutPDF.asp).

> 
> But to print them under Fedora, CUPS has automatic transformation tools
> built into it (which uses Ghostscript). You can use "pdf2ps" (which uses
> Ghostscript), you can use ImageMagick's "convert" utility (which uses
> Ghostscript), you can display them with xpdf and then print them from that
> software (which will use Ghostscript), etc. You may detect a theme here....
> 
>     Nico Kadel-Garcia
>     System and Networks Administrator
>     Mitsubishi Electric Research Lab
>     <nkadel at merl.com>
> 
> 
> -- 
> fedora-test-list mailing list
> fedora-test-list at redhat.com
> To unsubscribe: 
> http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-test-list

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina at afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175