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Acrobat 2.0 works, I've found, well for both printing and viewing. The
Acrobat Version 2.0 Distiller allows you to fully embed the fonts in the
Portable Document Format (.PDF) files so the recipients computers don't need
to have the originating font set present to display or print.
Step One:
The .PDF files are created by 'printing' from the document creation program
to a postscript file, instead of a postscript printer.
Step Two:
The resulting .ps files are coverted to .PDF files by the Distiller program.
Hyperlinking and other navigation aids are added to the .PDF filie by the
writer using the Exchange program.
Step Three:
The .PDF file and an Acrobat Reader are what is sent to the customer. The
reader (which requires no license, and includes a runtime version of Adobe
Type Manager) displays on the screen exactly what would have been printed on
paper. (Extras such as links, searching zooming etc. are available in the
reader.) The reader can then print back out to whatever printer is present.
'Voila' .... the resulting printout appears exactly as the original would
have if it were sent to a postscript printer instead of a file. The notable
benefit is that it doesn't require a postscript printer!
I've found another use of Acrobat. Converting postcript files to bitmaps. I
distill the .ps file...load it into the reader....capture the screen
....then crop and edit it in paintbrush. I now have a bitmap of the
postscript file for inclusion into other programs or documents. This is
useful when moving graphics from Unix (which frequently produces .ps graphic
files) into a DOS/Windows environment.
Any other experience with these new tools would be gratefully received.
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From: TECHWR-L
To: Multiple recipients of list TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: Writing Platform
Date: Wednesday, February 15, 1995 12:05PM
I'm confused: are you talking about how it looks printed or on-screen?
Because iff the on-screen appearance is perfect, that's all we're
asking of an on-line doc viewer. Did you mean to talk about printing?
I'm really interested cuz I started to load this yesterday to try it out.
jb
=========================
Merrill Dodge asks for info about Adobe Acrobat.--
I've been using Acrobat for about two years, and have had some success with
it. The disadvantage is primarily that text is often spaced poorly if there
are special attributes in it (underline, bold, etc.) and Acrobat is forced
to
print with its universal fonts, as when the font specified in the document
is
not native to the system being used to print the file. This does NOT cause
the text to be at all unreadable, but it does impact the appearance to the
point that I wouldn't want to be held responsible for the final output. My
most recent experience with this was the printing of WWW page that was
originally in HTML. All the hypertext links that were underlined in the
original document printed without the preceding space, although the
on-screen
appearance was perfect.
