First of all, I don't know much about publication formats for documents to
be published. I do know that Acrobat format is VERY convenient for the
folks who publish documents. It's much more compact, of course, if the
graphics are reduced in density, from 2780 or whatever DPI they use in the
printing trade, but in general it's something they put out because it's
relatively cheap and easy for the publisher. Of course it can be quite
involved and still be cheap and easy when compared with distributing 100k
physical data books, 15-40 volumes, averaging 800 pages each or some such.
That's why they so happily put the PDF's on a CD and give that away instead
of the 250 lbs of books.
Having said that, I've scanned and reproduced, even edited quite a bit of
graphic material, and, having been raised by a parent who worked in the
printing industry for 40+ years, and having worked there myself a bit, I am
not completely out of touch with what has to happen to create a
distributable file. It's just the needs of the "right" people that elude
me. I've got equipment/software to read and utilize PDF. I can view and
process other types of files to lesser extent, but I guess that still makes
it possible. I don't know how to search for a text string in PCL or
PostScript, nor do I want to learn, since nobody seems to want to do that
either.
I've already got what I need, in that I own the documents, so I don't need
to distribute them. I just know what a pain it is to have to fix an XYZ 320
when you don't have doc's to show you the way. For that reason I'm willing
to make my materials available. I've even found a web site which will host
these files in a location where they'll be exposed to many users of
"old-time" machines. What's more, PDF is my preferred format mainly because
I have already found a volunteer who's got the tools and will apply them to
generating the documents in PDF. If someone wants to make them into another
format, I suppose the TIFF's which are what many scanners put out as a raw
bitmap file, can be made available for OCR or re-editing and re-layout. I'm
not likely to do that myself, though.
If someone has suggestions as to how the needs of Non-PDF users can be met,
Now's the time, I guess . . .
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Pete Turnbull <pete_at_dunnington.u-net.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, June 07, 1999 4:27 PM
Subject: Re: Disk Drive Documents
>Leaving aside some of the vitriol, Sellam, Tony and Dick have made some
>valid points about document format.
>
>These documents and others like them are of interest mainly to people who
>collect old machines; whether there are more Windows users who die every
>day than there are users of computer systems desiring but inherently unable
>to view PDF files is totally irrelevant -- the vast majority of those
>Windows users aren't interested in these documents. On the other hand,
>there are lots of people like us who use classic machines day-to-day. For
>example, until recently, the machine I used most often was an Acorn
>Archimedes. It certainly has graphics and comms capabilities, but it can't
>view PDF. (There is now a viewer, but it's too big, too slow, and too
>restricted to be useful on my Arc). Even now, I don't use Windows, and I
>know many other users who don't. There are several UNIX OSs out there that
>don't have PDF viewers, and a few that only run old versions of Acroread
>(there was a lot of complaining about a year ago that AIX didn't have a PDF
>viewer). Furthermore, I'm sure that many enthusiasts might well use the
>internet, say at work, to download "stuff", that then gets copied for use
>on a classic machine elsewhere. Finally, as far as machines are concerned,
>not all of them can use cheap large-capacity hard drives, so size *is* an
>issue.
>
>All of this suggests that Word documents are a complete non-starter, and
>however convenient PDF is in some ways, it shouldn't be the *only* format
>provided. I think we're all agreed on that? I'd also submit that
>PostScript is less useful than either. There are few systems that can
>handle PostScript but not PDF; all can handle ASCII+GIF; it can be a real
>pain extracting individual pages from PostScript, especially the
>almost-DSC-compliant PS produced by Microsloth. Even printing it can be
>problematic.
>
>PDF is nice because it can preserve the original layout, with diagrams in
>the right places etc, but for many purposes having the diagrams separate
>(and viewed in a separate window) is actually a nicer way of working --
>depending on purpose and personal preference. For the latter scheme,
>there's little wrong with flat ASCII text files and some GIFs. Stream TIFF
>might theoretically be better suited to scanned diagrams, but isn't so well
>supported as GIF. As for the size of the raster image, it can be scrolled
>or scaled on any reasonable graphics system I've ever seen -- and that's
>exactly what happens anyway when a scanned image is put in a PDF file and
>displayed or printed. If the images are separate, anyone who wants can
>print one separately, blown up to the size they want (resolution
>permitting) and printed out separately to pin on the wall over the bench.
> You can't do that with Acroread.
>
>There are plenty of document formats that don't keep everything in one
>file. Why should that be a requirement? There are probably more systems
>that use directories or folders than single files. Tar/zip for
>distribution is fine for these.
>
>As Sellam said, you'll never get a concensus about a single format that all
>of the interested parties can access. I don't agree that means you should
>use only the lowest common denominator; I think it means you should provide
>two (or more) formats. I'll download the PDF if it's available[1], but
>I'll surely download the ASCII too. Of course, I'm assuming that one is
>more-or-less as easy to produce as the other, if you have the originals.
>
>[1] unless I discover that the "text" within it isn't OCRed or typed, but
>scanned bitmaps, in which case I'll likely throw it away again.
>
>--
>
>Pete Peter Turnbull
> Dept. of Computer Science
> University of York
Received on Mon Jun 07 1999 - 19:56:17 BST