Re: [PLUG] John "MAD DOG" Hall in Philadelphia 10/10 (fwd)

[Fred K Ollinger <follinge@sas.upenn.edu>]

> Does Acrobat *Reader* actually read Postscript files? My
> understanding is that it only reads pdf files. Granted, ps2pdf works

They said acrobat, about $200, not the free adobe ad-ware: acrobat reader.

> ... one of the great ironies of Mac OS and Windows has always been
> that they absolutely *refuse* to deal with Postscript in any sensible
> way. It's ridiculous that ps *cannot* be (usefully) used as an

This isn't quite correct. On the mac side, you can drag a .ps file to a
printer icon on the desktop and it will print. I haven't tried this in
windows, yet.

> on-disk format in these operating systems, especially since what
> they do with their fancy, resource-forked or MS-gobbledy-gooked
> formats is translate them to postscript before sending them down
> the wire to the printer (any printer, yes including Apple printers).

This is ironic. Most people's eyes glaze over when I tell them that how it
looks in .ps is all that matters (in situations when we are still trying
to make pretty hard copies).

I like the idea of having .ps to download that you can see on gv or print,
but it's too hard for most people so I usually send them a .pdf. Still not
so good for people who can't do anything for a file unless you 'click it'.
We need to put some kind of html wrapper around the .pdf files which will
jump to the adobe acrobat _reader_ download page. I wonder how hard this
trick would be to pull off? Maybe put the html file that says, 'click this
first' then have the .pdf come next. Naw, too hard to use. ;)

Fred


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