ps documents Re: [fitsbits] Re: FITS vis a vis XML

[Steve Willner]

In article
<Pine.OSF.4.20.9912221028060.11362-100000 at poseidon.ifctr.mi.cnr.it>,
Lucio Chiappetti <lucio at ifctr.mi.cnr.it> writes: 
>  - the printing of a paper hardcopy. For this ftp retrieval of a postscript
>    version is the best. Can be printed with just an lpr commands.

Sorry, but this is simply not correct.  Contrary to popular belief,
PostScript is NOT device independent.  A document that prints fine on
one brand of printer may not print on another brand of PostScript
printer, let alone on a printer that doesn't use PostScript.  I use a
HP PostScript printer (perhaps the most popular brand?) and quite
often have to edit the PostScript to get documents to print.
Sometimes I can't get them to print even after editing.

I'm afraid PDF has become the standard for distributing printable
documents.  It works on all popular platforms and (as far as I know)
any printer that has a driver available for the platform.  PDF is
also inherently compressed, so it takes less disk space than a raw
PostScript.  Of course you can gzip the PostScript, but that means
you need an extra step to use the document.  If the FITS documents
are not available in PDF, it's time somebody converted them.

-- 
Steve Willner            Phone 617-495-7123     swillner at cfa.harvard.edu
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA                 
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