28 Jan
2005
28 Jan
'05
12:09 p.m.
On Fri, 28 Jan 05 18:30:52 GMT
msokolov(a)ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov) wrote:
Randy McLaughlin <randy(a)s100-manuals.com>
wrote:
Just a suggestion of a workaround that I have sometimes used.
If you have a machine capable of running Linux or a NetBSD you can run
the X11 program Xpdf. I'm not merely saying use Xpdf to read the
document. You can also load the PDF file up in Xpdf and use Xpdf's
print function to print it out as a Postscript file (use the
print-to-file rather than print-to-postscript-printer option).
I use NetBSD to do this, which means you can do it on quite a bit of
vintage hardware, and definitely in a PeeCee-free environment. It
usually works well as a way of 'recovering the source' for information
that some people fear has had the Postscript-formatted version 'lost
forever.' It's also a way of 'stripping out restrictions' that people
lock PDF files in (print to postscript, then convert back to a new PDF,)
so long as they at least allow you to print the PDF file.
-Scott
- Run the result through tiff2ps(1)
- and finaly generate a PDF with ps2pdf(1).
Could you perhaps be a little more friendly to people like me and Tony
Duell who actually _USE_ our classic computers for our day-to-day
work, including viewing classic computer documentation, and make the
PostScript available as well, i.e., with the last step omitted?
PostScript is infinitely more friendly to Classic Computers than PDF.
A PostScript document can be easily handled by someone who has no
computing technology younger than 1985, that's almost 20 y old, not
just 10. No graphical operating system required (how the heck is one
supposed to run Adobe Acrobat on a vintage command-line OS with a
VT100 terminal??), just use your favourite Classic command-line OS, be
it ancient UNIX, VMS, RSX, or whatever, to send the PostScript file
(with a command line) to your
|d|i|g|i|t|a|l| PrintServer 40 (one of the original PS printers, same
|time
as LaserWriter), and you are done. Can't do that with PDF. And the
original PostScript prior to PDF conversion is always infinitely
better than PostScript produced by turning PDF back into PS (which is
what I do with all PDFs that come my way, because converting back to
PS with a command line tool is the only thing I can do with a PDF
file).
One of the first laws I will pass after my revolution is that anyone
who publishes or sends to another person a PDF file produced by
conversion from PostScript but withholds the PostScript source shall
be dragged into the public square and flogged till he can't stand.
The recipient of the PDF file would simply need to call NKVD/KGB with
the complaint.
MS