Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!brunix!Andrew
From: Andrew Gilmartin
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Adobe documents on NeXT & Display PostScript
Message-ID: <62834@brunix.UUCP>
Date: 29 Jan 91 14:04:12 GMT
References: <84525@unix.cis.pitt.edu>
Sender: news@brunix.UUCP
Organization: Brown University
Lines: 31

In article <84525@unix.cis.pitt.edu> haugelan@unix.cis.pitt.edu (John C. 
Haugeland) writes:

>1)  Why are the files so big, given that the documents are short. For
>    instance, according to the "Developer Technical Resources Catalog," 
>    the document called "Display PostScript System: NeXT Overview" is
>    11 pages; but according to the "Index of Documents" from the Adobe
>    file server, the PostScript file is 84k -- why?

The answer seems to be simple: PostScript output from most applications is not
a good choice for document distribution. The Postscript contains too much
initialization code for, very often, little content.

I don't suggest that Adobe distribute their documents in their original
proprietary application format, but I do wish they would distribute them using
a clean PostScript encoding. With the wealth of design and programming talent
at Adobe I expect they could easily design a page layout that could be rendered
with a human readable PostScript encoding; The encoding would be light on
initialization and interference with the text. I don't like to read TeX
documents in the raw but am glad that I can.

Has anyone thought about creating PostScript code to directly handle TEI (Text
Encoding Initiative) encoded texts? The TEI encoding is a logical choice for
document distrbution.

-- Andrew Gilmartin
   Computing & Information Services
   Brown University
   (401) 863-7305
   andrew@brownvm.brown.edu (internet)
   andrew@brownvm (bitnet)