Help design the new Distiller
Michael Geary
Hello Distiller users,
I'm working on the design for the next version of Distiller for
Windows, and I'd like your input. Some of the kinds of things I'm
particularly interested in:
Where does Distiller fail to meet your needs? (What would you like to
accomplish with it but have trouble doing now?)
What seems clumsy and awkward to use?
What would make it easier to use or more useful for you?
What do you like about it but could be improved further?
I am working mainly on the user interface and the way it ties into the
Windows printing system. I'm not directly involved in the Mac or Unix
versions, nor with core functionality like how it handles fonts and
graphics, but I'd be happy to pass along suggestions and requests to
the folks working on those areas.
Replies here in the newsgroup rather than email would be best--one
person's comment may trigger ideas from someone else.
Thanks!
-Mike
To reach me by email, either use the link in my Web site at
www.geary.com, or delete "bitbucket." from my email address.
My apologies for the inconvenience provoked by our friends
the spammers. <sigh>
Stan The Man
In article <346f4ede...@news.ricochet.net>, Mi...@bitbucket.Geary.com
(Michael Geary) wrote:
(snip)
>I am working mainly on the user interface and the way it ties into the
>Windows printing system. I'm not directly involved in the Mac or Unix
>versions, nor with core functionality like how it handles fonts and
>graphics, but I'd be happy to pass along suggestions and requests to
>the folks working on those areas.
Mac-wise, at least, I would like to see a range of optional Distiller
presets available - eg suggested settings for the most common distribution
targets such as Electronic Publishing, WWW/email, Inkjet Printer, Laser
Printer, Imagesetter, and No Compression.
Also, it seems a bit silly not having a reader/editor combined with
Distiller in a single app. Show me one person who uses Distiller and then
_doesn't_ open Exchange or Reader to view the PDF....
Stan
--
Stan The Man
+++Naked under this Macintosh+++
DELETE X WHEN REPLYING
Dave Hylands
Michael Geary wrote:
>
> Hello Distiller users,
>
> I'm working on the design for the next version of Distiller for
> Windows, and I'd like your input. Some of the kinds of things I'm
> particularly interested in:
>
> Where does Distiller fail to meet your needs? (What would you like to
> accomplish with it but have trouble doing now?)
>
> What seems clumsy and awkward to use?
>
> What would make it easier to use or more useful for you?
>
> What do you like about it but could be improved further?
One of the biggest problems that I run into, is that programs are
written under the assumption that a user will be sitting in front of the
program. This makes it much more difficult to automate the program.
Distiller suffers from this.
I would like to see version of Distiller that can be run as a service
under Windows NT. The traditional UI component would communicate with
the service.
The service should also have an API so that other programs can
communicate with it.
The API should be the same API as is used by the UI, and should include
complete access to all configuration parameters.
> I am working mainly on the user interface and the way it ties into the
> Windows printing system. I'm not directly involved in the Mac or Unix
> versions, nor with core functionality like how it handles fonts and
> graphics, but I'd be happy to pass along suggestions and requests to
> the folks working on those areas.
>
> Replies here in the newsgroup rather than email would be best--one
> person's comment may trigger ideas from someone else.
>
> Thanks!
>
> -Mike
>
> To reach me by email, either use the link in my Web site at
> www.geary.com, or delete "bitbucket." from my email address.
> My apologies for the inconvenience provoked by our friends
> the spammers. <sigh>
--
Dave Hylands Email: DHyl...@creo.com 3700 Gilmore Way
Principal Software Developer Tel: (604) 451-2700 x2329 Burnaby B.C.
Creo Products Inc. Fax: (604) 437-9891 Canada V5G 4M1
Michael Geary
ch...@netcomuk.co.ukX (Stan The Man) wrote:
>Mac-wise, at least, I would like to see a range of optional Distiller
>presets available - eg suggested settings for the most common distribution
>targets such as Electronic Publishing, WWW/email, Inkjet Printer, Laser
>Printer, Imagesetter, and No Compression.
>
>Also, it seems a bit silly not having a reader/editor combined with
>Distiller in a single app. Show me one person who uses Distiller and then
>_doesn't_ open Exchange or Reader to view the PDF....
Excellent ideas, both. Thanks for the feedback--let me see what we can
do...
Bernhard 'Gustl' Bauer
Michael Geary wrote:
>
> Hello Distiller users,
>
> I'm working on the design for the next version of Distiller for
> Windows, and I'd like your input.
We are about to publish our doks on the web. And this should
be done automatically. So we intend to use the watched
folder feature of Distiller. Unfortunatly one can not
specify a different output folder (on our web server) for
the PDFs.
Also we would like to use bytewise reading of PDFs. Now we
have to go through Exchange to achieve that. I would be
great if Distiller can generate bytewise PDFs.
--
servus --- Gustl
----------------------------------------------
Bernhard "Gustl" Bauer, R&D
QUANTEC Tonstudiotechnik GmbH - Munich/Germany
Joel Finkle
Michael Geary <Mi...@bitbucket.Geary.com> wrote in article
<346f4ede...@news.ricochet.net>...
> Hello Distiller users,
>
> I'm working on the design for the next version of Distiller for
> Windows, and I'd like your input. Some of the kinds of things I'm
> particularly interested in:
>
> Where does Distiller fail to meet your needs? (What would you like to
> accomplish with it but have trouble doing now?)
The problems we have are all just outside of the Distiller arena:
* We need a standard non-proportional font other than courier, one
that would be available on printers commonly
* Moving hyperlink/outline information into PDF documents is
difficult, tedious or both [the Word'97 macro doesn't meet
our needs, and isn't editable!]
* Large text files need to be converted to PDF, and placed
onto a standard header and footer (which may be of opposite
orientation: 132 column text landscape with portrait headers)
Xiaocun Xu
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Michael Geary wrote:
> Where does Distiller fail to meet your needs? (What would you like to
> accomplish with it but have trouble doing now?)
Sometimes it is necessary for me to retain certain printer dependent
information in the PS file when they are packed into PDF, such as
duplexing and paper tray specification. Is it possible to list these in
an option file so that Distiller automatically looking for them and not
strip them out during the translation? The only way I seems to find now
is to manually edit the PS files to add the necessary PDFmarks so that
Distiller won't strip them out.
BTW, anyone out there has a sed script which is used for inserting
PDFmarks into PS files? I am currently using this in Solaris platform.
Thanks,
Xiaocun
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org: Texcel Research Inc.
adr: One Kendall Square Suite 2200;;;Cambridge;MA;02139;USA
email;internet: x...@texcel.no
title: Consultant/Application Developer
tel;work: 617-621-7004
tel;fax: 617-621-7026
tel;home: 508-875-0749
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Aandi Inston
"Joel Finkle" <jjf...@searle.monsanto.com> wrote:
Just for illumination...
>The problems we have are all just outside of the Distiller arena:
>* We need a standard non-proportional font other than courier, one
> that would be available on printers commonly
Why? Is this because Courier is overdone, or because it has some
defects? If it has defects what should the alternative font avoid?
---------------------------------------
Aandi Inston qu...@dial.pipex.com
Try Quite Imposing for Acrobat Exchange.
http://www.quite.com/imposing/
Alan Shutko
>>>>> "J" == Joel Finkle <jjf...@searle.monsanto.com> writes:
J> Moving
J> hyperlink/outline information into PDF documents is difficult,
J> tedious or both [the Word'97 macro doesn't meet our needs, and
J> isn't editable!]
Yes, this is outside Distiller's purview. It shouldn't be impossible
to make a good macro, assuming you use a very rigid stylesheet.
Trying to cope with completely random markup would be difficult.
(That's why I like LaTeX.)
--
Alan Shutko <a...@acm.org> - By consent of the corrupted
A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken.
Berthold K.P. Horn
"Joel Finkle" <jjf...@searle.monsanto.com> writes:
> > Where does Distiller fail to meet your needs? (What would you like to
> > accomplish with it but have trouble doing now?)
> The problems we have are all just outside of the Distiller arena:
> * We need a standard non-proportional font other than courier, one
> that would be available on printers commonly
There are quite a few nice fixed width fonts including Lucida Sans Typewriter
and Lucida Typewriter, but of course only Courier is printer resident.
Ask on comp.fonts for more suggestions.
> * Moving hyperlink/outline information into PDF documents is
> difficult, tedious or both [the Word'97 macro doesn't meet
> our needs, and isn't editable!]
Use a DTP system that supports hyper-text and PDF better (like TeX).
Ask on comp.text.tex for more suggestions.
> * Large text files need to be converted to PDF, and placed
> onto a standard header and footer (which may be of opposite
> orientation: 132 column text landscape with portrait headers)
--
Berthold K.P. Horn mailto:bk...@ai.mit.edu
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
DISCLAIMER: respondent has connections with http://www.YandY.com
James Owens
Michael Geary (Mi...@bitbucket.Geary.com) writes:
> Hello Distiller users,
>
> I'm working on the design for the next version of Distiller for
> Windows, and I'd like your input. Some of the kinds of things I'm
> particularly interested in:
> . . .
> What seems clumsy and awkward to use?
> . . .
> I am working mainly on the user interface and the way it ties into the
> Windows printing system. I'm not directly involved in the Mac or Unix
> versions, nor with core functionality like how it handles fonts and
> graphics, but I'd be happy to pass along suggestions and requests to
> the folks working on those areas.
>
> Replies here in the newsgroup rather than email would be best--one
> person's comment may trigger ideas from someone else.
The installation process -- if you intend to use Acrobat under OS/2.
I know, I know, you don't support OS/2. But hear me out. First, if you
think Distiller won't run in WinOS/2, why not mention it on your Web
description of the product? That would save everyone a lot of trouble.
Second, why not mention in the installation instructions that OS/2 users
should be careful not to install Distiller because it will wipe out their
existing win32s and overwrite it with a new one that doesn't work?
Putting this warning in the post-installation readme file is kind of
stupid, IMHO.
Third -- and this is important for your market share -- why tell OS/2
users that Distiller won't run with the old win32s (1.25) installation,
when actually it will? Having found this out on Usenet and proved it to
myself by using Distiller to convert PS files in WinOS/2, I've decided to
keep your product after all -- and you get to keep the money.
Would it hurt a lot to detect OS/2 during the installation procedure, and
leave win32s alone or install 1.25 if necessary? You could possibly
display a disclaimer that Distiller should run ok but you make no
guarantees.
--
James Owens ad...@Freenet.carleton.ca
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
gonen
Michael Geary wrote:
>
> Hello Distiller users,
>
> I'm working on the design for the next version of Distiller for
> Windows, and I'd like your input. Some of the kinds of things I'm
> particularly interested in:
>
> accomplish with it but have trouble doing now?)
>
>
>
> What do you like about it but could be improved further?
>
1. distiller has a problem with file-names.
i hope it will use unicode.
2. distiller should be able to read type 1 fonts in macintosh format
(access the resource).
and read fonts from pfb files without the need for pfm files.
3. i think distiller has a problem with the postscript run command. hope
it will be fixed.
4. i run distiller 3 on nt and it has a problem with handles - not
closed or somthing.
i have to close it every some time because the number of handles it
uses grows and grows.
Bikovsky Gonen
Globes
Mark Folse
Due to a usnet failure in my neck of the woods, I missed this orginal and
possibly some of the responses, but I'll go ahead anyway with my on $0.02.
Adobe has chosen to make Acrobat and PDF an key part of the features of
Extreme PostScript 3. For this to succeed with high-end, prepress users,
Adobe needs to resolve issues including:
Substitution of locally available fonts when Embed All has been specified.
We need to be able to turn this off.
Problems with extracing PostScript/EPS via Exchange where cross-platform
EPS files are involved (problems with WMF headers on the Mac).
Adobe needs to clearly document a mechanism for making desktop, spot color
seperations out of PDF composite files that fits the real world of
prepress, not what the Marketing/Vision types hope the market will be 2-3
years from now. Even the plug-in people (witness CrackerJack) are in
marking la-la land by pushing in-RIP seps of spots when what is needed now
is desktop seperation.
(A suggestion to Adobe and Plug-In developers everywhere: we want to be
able to output directly from Exchange, including seperations with
reasonable controls of same (overprint, traps, transfer preserved;
controls over CMYK generation {CGR, UCR and all their relevant variables).
If you're telling me Extreme in-RIP seperation is the only way to go, tell
me it will be Level 1 compatible in my new RIP, because too many of the
real world applications we deal with make color that way.g
Lastly, a button for idiot customers to push that says Distill for
PrePress that enables all the necessary/desirable features for same. I'm
not that fond of Wizards and other software assistant, but I am the
primary support person for your product in PrePress use by my customers,
and anything that can reduce my time on the phone with customers is
greatly appreciated.
--
--
Mark Folse * IS Manager * DL Printing * Detroit Lakes, MN USA
www.dlprinting.co * mfolse at dlprinting dot com
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Ansbro
In article <vuxpvnx...@ai.mit.edu>, bk...@ai.mit.edu (Berthold K.P.
Horn) wrote:
> "Joel Finkle" <jjf...@searle.monsanto.com> writes:
>
> > > Where does Distiller fail to meet your needs? (What would you like to
> > > accomplish with it but have trouble doing now?)
I'd like to see a PDF with layers.
It is a great way to display maps.
I'm not a professional, but I'm very happy with the one's I've done.
The mappers over in comp.infosystems.gis are always whining about
acrobat not working (they can't seem to find this newsgroup).
Andrew Fickling
>> "Joel Finkle" <jjf...@searle.monsanto.com> writes:
>>
>> > > Where does Distiller fail to meet your needs? (What would you like to
>> > > accomplish with it but have trouble doing now?)
Apologies if this has already been mentioned, but I've lost the top of
this thread ...
We're using the Watched Folders feature of Distiller (on the Mac) and
what would make my life a whole lot easier would be the facility to
specify the folders you wish to act as In and Out. This would enable us
to, for example, have an In folder on one volume and an Out folder on a
different one.
This would make Distiller a seamless, integral part of our prepress
workflow - then maybe I could throw away all those AppleScript manuals
...
Andrew
--
Andrew Fickling, Manchester, UK
Jack Hamilton
Michael Geary wrote:
> Where does Distiller fail to meet your needs? (What would you like to
> accomplish with it but have trouble doing now?)
One common use of Distiller is to turn "legacy" reports into PDF
files for online viewing. A few things that would be useful:
- Support of "box-drawing" characters. This is really a font
question, but it could be handled in Distiller.
- Ability to read a text file ("ASCII format") directly, instead of
having to go through a PostScript printer driver.
- Ability to parse the input file and create outlines automatically.
For example, "Page 1 of " in a specified page location could tell
Distiller to create a new outline entry, using the text in some
other specified location on the page.
--
Jack_H...@HCCompare.com
HealthCare COMPARE Corp.
West Sacramento, CA
Thomas Mueller, D-40237 Duesseldorf, Germany
Jack,
somwhere on the web there is a tool to convert ASCII to PDF, I think.
Search for the name "ASCII2PDF" or "TXT2PDF"
Best wishes form Germany
Tom
Jack Hamilton <Jack_H...@HCCompare.com> wrote:
>Michael Geary wrote:
>
>> Where does Distiller fail to meet your needs? (What would you like to
>> accomplish with it but have trouble doing now?)
>
>- Ability to read a text file ("ASCII format") directly, instead of
> having to go through a PostScript printer driver.
>
>--
>Jack_H...@HCCompare.com
>HealthCare COMPARE Corp.
>West Sacramento, CA
Thomas Müller
Author and Consultant for Digital Communication
P.O.Box 170113, D-40082 Duesseldorf, Germany
Tel +49 211 682900 Fax +49 211 6914515
http://www.dpunkt.de:80/produkte/Acrobat.html
Markus Kuhn
Michael Geary wrote:
> Where does Distiller fail to meet your needs? (What would you like to
> accomplish with it but have trouble doing now?)
A) It would be nice if there were an Encapsulated PDF standard
and that the Distiller could be used to transform Encapsulated
PostScript into this new Encapsulated PDF. Encapsulated PDF should
be (analog to EPS) a vector graphics format that allows easy inclusion
of graphics by PDF generating programs (namely texpdf, dvipdf, etc.).
B) In the Windows user interface of the distiller, it would be nice to
have a button in the options menue where one selects the paper size
to easier select the A4 paper size (297x210 mm). At the moment, the
user has to add this manually in centimeters (paper is normally
measured in millimeters!), and then only weird inch-rounded values
are displayed for the metric paper sizes. For more info on the
metric paper sizes, see
<http://www.ft.uni-erlangen.de/~mskuhn/iso-paper.html>
If you are working on a new Acrobat revision in general, here are some
additional suggestions:
C) Bundle the new official Type1 versions of Knuth's TeX Computer
Modern font family with the Acroreader. These fonts are available
to the public domain now on
<ftp://tug2.cs.umb.edu/tex-archive/fonts/cm/ps-type1/bluesky/>
Most scientific papers are written in TeX with these fonts, and
if PDF is supposed to become the standard archiving format for
scientific publications, it would be good if the TeX fonts were
added to the standard repertoire of fonts that every PDF reader
is supposed to know.
If you are concerned about disk memory requirements, you can
make installation of the Computer Modern fonts optional and
add some code to the AcroReader that will tell the user how
to install the Computer Modern fonts when they are needed
by a document. Alternatively, you could decide to add only a
most frequently used subset of the Computer Modern fonts to
the standard repertoire (e.g., cmr10, cmti10, cmbx10, cmmi7,
cmmi10, cmsy10, cmtt10, cmr12, cmbx12, cmr9, cmbx9).
Motivation: Since such a huge fraction of scientific papers
is written today with TeX and Computer Modern fonts, it would
not be very elegant if one day university libraries become
partially replaced by PDF fileservers that there almost *every*
PDF file would have to contain copies of standard TeX fonts
such as CMR10. Shipping some TeX fonts with AcroReader would
make TeX generated PDF files much smaller.
D) Add a print menue option to AcroReader that allows to put
two or four reduced pages onto a single sheet of paper. In other
words, reduce A4 pages to A5 and put two on one side of a
landscape A4 page, or put four A6 pages on one A4 page.
This can save a lot of paper.
Markus
--
Markus G. Kuhn, Security Group, Computer Lab, Cambridge University, UK
email: mkuhn at acm.org, home page: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>
Andrea Valle
In article <3495354A...@cl.cam.ac.uk>, Markus Kuhn
<Marku...@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> D) Add a print menue option to AcroReader that allows to put
> two or four reduced pages onto a single sheet of paper. In other
> words, reduce A4 pages to A5 and put two on one side of a
> landscape A4 page, or put four A6 pages on one A4 page.
> This can save a lot of paper.
You can do it with some PostScript drivers: Adobe PSPrinter 4.11 is the best
driver for PS printers on W95 at now. The same thing applies on the Mac.
No PostScript? Sorry...
Andrea
Markus Kuhn
Andrea Valle wrote:
> Markus Kuhn wrote:
> > D) Add a print menue option to AcroReader that allows to put
> > two or four reduced pages onto a single sheet of paper. In other
> > words, reduce A4 pages to A5 and put two on one side of a
> > landscape A4 page, or put four A6 pages on one A4 page.
> > This can save a lot of paper.
>
> You can do it with some PostScript drivers: Adobe PSPrinter 4.11 is the best
> driver for PS printers on W95 at now. The same thing applies on the Mac.
I use the Unix version of AcroRead, and there the PostScript file
is generated by AcroRead and goes directly to the printer. Under
Unix, there is no such thing as a PostScript driver, and Acrobat
would be directly responsible for putting several reduced pages on
a single piece of paper. There exist postscript filter programs ą la
psnup or psmulti that try to do this, but they are not reliable for
all postscript files, and it would be very convenient of this could
be taken care of by the AcrobatReader itself.
John Doherty
In article <349685A8...@cl.cam.ac.uk>, Markus Kuhn
<Marku...@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
| Andrea Valle wrote:
| > Markus Kuhn wrote:
| > > D) Add a print menue option to AcroReader that allows to put
| > > two or four reduced pages onto a single sheet of paper. In other
| > > words, reduce A4 pages to A5 and put two on one side of a
| > > landscape A4 page, or put four A6 pages on one A4 page.
| > > This can save a lot of paper.
| >
| > You can do it with some PostScript drivers: Adobe PSPrinter 4.11 is the
| > best driver for PS printers on W95 at now. The same thing applies on the
| > Mac.
|
| I use the Unix version of AcroRead, and there the PostScript file
| is generated by AcroRead and goes directly to the printer. Under
| Unix, there is no such thing as a PostScript driver, and Acrobat
| would be directly responsible for putting several reduced pages on
| a single piece of paper. There exist postscript filter programs ą la
| psnup or psmulti that try to do this, but they are not reliable for
| all postscript files, and it would be very convenient of this could
| be taken care of by the AcrobatReader itself.
This is point over which reasonable people might well disagree.
On one hand, it seems like this is a feature better left to the print
driver -- after all, why should applications all have to implement this
independently?
Adobe seems to have subscribed to this view: they've provided a print
driver on popular end-user platforms that supports multiple-up printing,
so there's no point in providing the same facility in applications.
On the other hand, not everybody uses a mac or windows machine, and Adobe
has not provided these folks a way to print PDf files multiple-up. Most of
them use unix, though, so they can use the psutils for this sort of thing.
Although the psutils won't work with *all* PS files, in this context it
only matters that they work with PS files produced by Acrobat. I've never
tried that, but Acrobat Exchange's PS files seem to be completely DSC-
compliant, so I expect that the psutils could handle them just fine.
On the machine I'm sitting at now, Reader doesn't produce PostScript at
all except through a print driver, but I'll bet that unix Reader's PS
files are DSC-compliant, so psutils should handle them without difficulty.