Differences between version 19 and predecessor to the previous major change of CreatingPDFs.
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| Newer page: | version 19 | Last edited on Thursday, October 14, 2004 11:45:58 am | by JohnMcPherson | Revert |
| Older page: | version 18 | Last edited on Sunday, July 11, 2004 2:35:58 am | by AristotlePagaltzis | Revert |
@@ -1,13 +1,11 @@
-InNeedOfRefactor: we have too many different pages with partly overlapping information on creating [PDF]s.
-
!!! Under [Linux]
!! From any PostScript document
Many applications are capable of generating PostScript. Since [PDF] is actually a container format that relies on PostScript for the actual document image, generating [PDF]s from PostScript documents is trivial. The GhostScript package processes both formats and comes with a script called ps2pdf(1) ([Debian] package: __gs-common__) which does exactly what its name suggests. Older versions of GhostScript (such as the widely used version 5.50) embed any non-core fonts as bitmap fonts, which AcrobatReader doesn't do a very good job of rendering. More recent versions of GhostScript (6.x or 7.x) do a much better job of embedding scalable fonts in the document.
-See the notes below for hints about using ps2pdf.
+See the notes below for hints about using ps2pdf/ghostscript
.
!! As a special printer
You can set up a fake printer that will generate a [PDF] file. Most of these techniques are wrappers to ps2pdf. This means you can make a [PDF] file from any program that can print. See the [SambaPDFPrinter] and [CUPSNotes] pages.
@@ -22,8 +20,19 @@
Version 1.1 of OpenOffice does [PDF] "natively" - it is merely another filetype you can save as, rather than setting up fake printers. It also has ''Export to PDF...'' which allows you to save optimised for ''Size'', ''Print'', or ''Press''.
__Hint__: !OpenOffice will embed TrueType fonts into the PDF file it creates. You may get better results if you use fonts with the same name as the "core" fonts built into the PDF file format. For example, use "Times" instead of "Times New Roman" for your serif font, "Helvetica" as your sans-serif font, and "Courier" as your monotype font. If you do this, then no font information needs to be embedded in the PDF (which some viewers might have problems with), and the PDF file is smaller as a result.
+
+----
+!!ps2pdf hints
+
+* ps2pdf is really just a wrapper script that calls gs(1) with the correct options, such as -sDEVICE=pdfwrite (meaning to use the "pdfwrite" output device). Make sure you are using the most recent version of GNU ghostscript, since each version seems to improve greatly on previous versions. (Current version in debian testing at time of writing is 7.07).
+* If you are trying to make a pdf from a postscript file that has a funny size (ie, using "gv" shows it is using the !BoundingBox), use the __"-dEPSCrop"__ option. Otherwise it will default to landscape A4 and probably things wrong.
+* If your document is black-and-white/grayscale, you might be able to make use of some optimisations by adding __"-dProcessColorModel=/!DeviceGray"__ as a command-line option.
+* You can add a -r''<n>'' option for the resolution... eg a low resolution like -r75 if you are only creating a PDF designed to be viewed on-screen.
+* You can join (ie concatenate) multiple PostScript and PDF files together, for example:
+ gs -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite \
+ -sOutputFile=/tmp/merged.pdf file1.ps file2.pdf file3.pdf ...
----
!!! Under [Windows]
@@ -64,15 +73,8 @@
!! From Publisher, for online publishing
You can use the ''MS Imagesetter Printer'' that is created by the ''Commercial Printer'' option when installing Publisher. This creates a pair of pseudo-printers on a [Windows] box, which can be used to ''Print to file'' if the app doesn't support such. The printers are called ''MS Publisher Colour Printer'' and ''MS Publisher Imagesetter'' and both are capable of colour. The Imagesetter one seems to work better.
-----
-!!ps2pdf hints
-
-* ps2pdf is really just a wrapper script that calls gs with the correct options, such as -sDEVICE=pdfwrite (meaning to use the "pdfwrite" output device). Make sure you are using the most recent version of GNU ghostscript, since each version seems to improve greatly on previous versions. (Current version in debian testing at time of writing is 7.07).
-* If you are trying to make a pdf from a postscript file that has a funny size (ie, using "gv" shows it is using the !BoundingBox), use the __"-dEPSCrop"__ option. Otherwise it will default to landscape A4 and probably things wrong.
-* If your document is black-and-white/grayscale, you might be able to make use of some optimisations by adding __"-dProcessColorModel=/!DeviceGray"__ as a command-line option.
-* You can add a -r''<n>'' option for the resolution... eg a low resolution like -r75 if you are only creating a PDF designed to be viewed on-screen.
----
!!! Under [MacOSX]
