[softwarelist] Re: .pdf creation for OvationPro
- From: Martin Wuerthner <public@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: davidpilling@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2007 20:55:42 +0100
In message <4f3d71678amonster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Robert Greenfield <monster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Would it be possible to add direct .pdf creation into OvationPro like
> Artworks and Techwriter?
Just for the record: The PDF export options in ArtWorks and EasiWriter
are entirely different. ArtWorks has direct PDF creation, which is
vastly superior to what you can get via the PostScript printer driver.
EasiWriter's PDF export uses the traditional route via the PostScript
printer driver and Ghostscript. It still does better than other
applications because it includes extra information for GhostScript,
such as the document outline (structure tree) and links both within
the document and to external URLs, but the limitations of the
PostScript printer driver still apply (most notably the poor quality
of embedded sprites).
The question is why you would want it. If it is just for convenience,
then it should not be too hard to add a "Save as PDF" option to
OvationPro in a similar way to how it works in EasiWriter, i.e., via
the PostScript driver and Ghostscript. Even with such a solution,
OvationPro could send some extra information to Ghostscript, e.g.,
graduated fills, but as with EasiWriter, the overall quality would
still be limited by the PostScript driver.
If you want to overcome the limitations of the PostScript driver and
get CMYK and Spot colours across, plus high quality sprites, then full
direct PostScript or PDF export would have to be added, which is a
huge order (even though the Windows version does it already, which
means that part of the work is done).
> Could OvationPro export pages in Artworks format? This would allow for
> incredibly easy interaction between the apps and be a great design/DTP
> combination.
> (and you could print to .pdf using Artworks)
First of all, please bear in mind that the ArtWorks file format
specification is not publicly available, so third party applications
cannot create ArtWorks documents. I would not mind disclosing the
details to David, but there is no comprehensive document describing
just the format so a lot of understanding of the ArtWorks document
architecture would be required to successfully create ArtWorks files
outside ArtWorks, which probably makes this idea uneconomical.
It would probably be easier to add direct PDF export to OvationPro
than adding direct ArtWorks export because the PDF format is well
documented and it would make more sense anyway because it is a
cross-platform format.
There is one big drawback in direct PostScript or PDF export: OP would
have to export any embedded ArtWorks files as bitmaps because it would
not know what else to do with them - to OP, an ArtWorks file is just a
black box that can be rendered to the screen and the printer driver
but that has no visible internal structure. On the other hand, a PDF
export option that goes via the PostScript printer driver can include
ArtWorks files as vector data, but obviously the result is only as
good as what you can get now by printing to PostScript. Most notably,
any ArtWorks file with transparency is converted to a bitmap.
Martin
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Martin Wuerthner MW Software martin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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