[softwarelist] Re: Quercus, PDF problems

  • From: Dr Alan Leighton <alan.leighton2@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: davidpilling@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2007 17:30:02 GMT

In message <4f2d08d299john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
          John Cartmell <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 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.

I have produced many documents, books, literature with illustrations 
for the church and for James Cook UH some over 240 pages long. All of 
them using RISC OS and !Ghostscript. The pdf files burnt onto CDs and 
sent to the printers. Never a problem. Lay outs fine fonts fine (not 
many used) jpegs fine. The Hospital have a major document on their 
intranet.

Alan

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