[softwarelist] Re: Quercus, PDF problems

  • From: John Cartmell <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: davidpilling@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2007 14:28:13 +0100

On 05 Oct, David Pilling <flist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi,

> I was interested to read an article by John Cartmell in the latest 
> Quercus (no. 285 page 31 October 2007) where he relates how the magazine 
> is published these days.

> What surprised me was that generating PDF files is the one thing he 
> can't do on RISC OS.

I can do it.
We do produce RiScript pdf files in emergencies - ie where there is a fault
indicated by the printers' proofs - but I'm ready to modify (and simplify) the
pages under such circumstances.
For non-emergencies - and to keep me sane - the pdfs are produced on a foreign
platform from PostScript files produced in RISC OS. That way I don't turn into
a gibbering wreck when the phone rings the day the printers get their files.

> I wonder if anyone knows (this thread is not going to make much sense if 
> JC does not respond) just why that is - in other words what is it about 
> the PDF files from the two available routes (GhostScript and RiScript) 
> that causes problems?

That's the problem. I don't know - and didn't get the feedback needed.
In the past RISC OS pdfs have got the response from printers "Can't resolve
that page". When you have 20 pages with faults, and insufficient feedback, and
a deadline - you give up [not straight away but after tearing your hair out,
losing much sleep, losing money on trying a different tack, &c].

Rather than trying to solve the problem directly I took a sideways move to
ensure that we got the magazine out regularly (which we have now done - using
the system described in the article David mentions - for the last 12 months)
before raising the problem. I needed to show that we weren't reliant on there
being an answer.

I'm pretty certain that some of the feedback that we had originally was wrong
and that we were (sometimes) producing a valid page in pdf - even where
RiScript showed otherwise. I haven't done proper tests with the current
version of RiScript and reckon that we need to start from scratch with no
preconceptions - though I'd look first at how different fonts were treated.

It's not helped that pdfs produced on a Mac - that are happily accepted by the
printers - can look an utter mess in RiScript.

BTW David Bradforth (who does the PostScript to pdf magic for me) and I hope
to be able to give a joint talk on all this at the South East Show. Feedback
here and then will be very welcome.

-- 
        John Cartmell   john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx      0845 006 8822 or 0161 969 9820
        Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527         www.finnybank.com
        Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

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