Re: 3D FAQ woes (and .pdf files)

[P3D bob wier <wier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 6:23 PM 11/21/96, P3D Ralph Johnston wrote:

> Some of you may have access to a postscript capable printer, such as an HP
> Laserjet 4.  Just copy the file to the printer and it prints!
> 
> Otherwise, if you have a PC with windows 95, download "ROps32.zip" (373K)
> from <http://www.shareware.com>
> 
> It is a nice postscript viewer/printer.  It also can extract the ASCII text
> but has some typos, omissions, and run together words when doing this.  You
> have to rotate the tables so the text runs left to right before extracting.
> I can E-Mail the ASCII text from these FAQ's to anyone interested.  Bear in
> mind that the graphics will be missing.  There are many nice drawings of
> film formats, and film chip mounting that you should see.
> 
> I could also copy both documents and mail them for a fee to cover my time
> and the paper, for those not wanting to any of the above.
> 


This is a good suggestion for a way to look at the .ps files.

Also, I might note that in all the tests with Adobe Acrobat viewer here, the
.pdf form of the FAQ is working 100%  However, transferring graphics
rich material in a form which reproduces the original document EXACTLY
is still in the development phase. If you can't get the CURRENT version
of the pdf viewer to work on your machine (pick it up from www.adobe.com)
drop me a line. If we can't work it out, I'll pass the info along to
Adobe. Viewers are available in Mac, PC, and Unix versions. The current
viewers are approximately all version V3.x. Note that you have to 
transfer the files ending in .pdf or in .z or in .Z in BINARY - if you
transfer in text mode, you'll scramble 'em. For the files ending in .z or
.Z, you'll have to de-compress them before you use 'em.

One suggestion is that if you try to print the document and can't get
it to work (ie, it prints a few pages and quits) you have probably
run into a memory/disk space limitation. Try printing a few pages
at a time. This is if you can view it on the screen, but can't print
it.

I'm working on a much longer document (50+ pages now) and can view
it on my 16 meg 486/sx25 just fine. I've recently seen some software
doucmentation in .pdf format on CDROM which is 800 pages long (not a 
typo) and it works fine also. 

I should be getting V3 of the .pdf generator program (if Adobe ever
releases it!) and will regenerate the docs again using that, which presumably
will bring any new features up to date. I'll make an announcement 
on that when it's ready.  It appears to me that Adobe has "won" the
exact form document transfer software race (the other main entry was
"Common Ground"). Thus you'll probably be seeing more and more .pdf
documents, so it might be worth some time to see if you can get it
to work on your particular system. There is also currently some development
work underway to integrate www browsers with .pdf format viewers.

By FAR, the biggest problem I've seen is that whomever generates the
document doesn't include all the fonts necessary for document display
along with the document itself in order to try to save filelength. 
They are relying on the system where it is being viewed to either 
substitue in another font, or have the original font available. Neither
of these assumtions work very well, so I'm including ALL font metrics
in my files, even at the expense of perhaps being 20% larger.

As far as access speed is concerned, that's mostly a function of how
heavily loaded the pack mule train is between here and Dallas (just kidding
1/2 :-)  Try as late in the evening as you can when the net load decreases.
I have no control on those kind of things once the thin-net goes thru the
wall to the computer center :-)

THANKS

    ====== wier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ======
  Thursday, November 21, 1996 09:34 PM
   keeper of the Photo-3d, Motorola
 MC68HC11, Overland-Trails, LDS State
Research Outline Guides and other stuff
 



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