Re: [Groff] (no longer anything to do with) groff_ms.man

[Stewart C. Russell]

Larry Jones wrote:
> 
> Stewart C. Russell writes:
> >
> > Adobe has a number of patents and patents pending, covering technology
> > that is disclosed in the Portable Document Format (PDF) Specification,
> > version 1.3 and later, as documented in PDF Reference and associated
> > technical notes."
> 
> Yes, but if you look at the details, it goes on to say:
> 
>         Accordingly, the following patents are licensed on a
>         royalty-free, non-exclusive basis ...
>         for the sole purpose of developing software that produces,
>         consumes, and interprets PDF files that are compliant with the
>         Specification...

Hmm, guess that leaves Adobe SOL then. Distiller 3 & 4 have a convenient
bug in font subsetting and inclusion that means that distilling/diluting
(?? - well, what's the word for pdf->ps?) are not entirely reversible. I
haven't dug through the files, but I'm told it's because fonts aren't
being handled according to the spec.

Because of this, and only becuase of a sharp-eyed preflight op at our
printer, we very nearly printed a dictionary in sTuDlYcApS. It looked
okay on our screens.

I as also at a presentation about PDF where one of the speakers (I can't
remember who) said that it was possible to create a PDF according to the
specs that Adobe Acrobat Reader (4, I think) wouldn't touch.

-- 
Stewart C. Russell              Senior Analyst Programmer
address@hidden  Collins Dictionaries
use Disclaimer; my $opinion;    Bishopbriggs, Scotland