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From:
Valerie Sutton Date: Tue Apr 18, 2000 3:59 am Subject: Re: More wonderful features with .PDF! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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SignWriting List April 17, 2000 At 10:33 PM -0400 4/17/00, Angus B. Grieve-Smith wrote: > > I get the impression that they've more than made up for those >costs by selling copies of Illustrator and other software based on >Postscript technology. But regardless, they've given Postscript and PDF >to the public as an open format, which allowed the development of >GhostScript. Yes exactly, and I have had good experiences with Adobe. They have donated to our nonprofit before. Adobe seems more "approachable" than other large companies, from my perspective. I also use almost every product they have! > Good luck! Acrobat Distiller is their main source of profit from >PDF, and I don't think that Adobe is good-hearted enough to give it away. That isn't true..they do donate to nonprofits in several different ways. The DAC would not be making any money on it either - the copies I am talking about would be a donation from both the DAC and Adobe jointly...we would be donating the package to schools for the Deaf around the country, coupled with SignWriter. And I know for a fact that Adobe is interested in that kind of publicity. There are not that many schools, after all - it would mean very little money from their point of view...and I can give them publicity on our web site, although I know we are small potatoes - at least I can try to encourage the idea - if they don't want to participate that is OK too - we will survive! > If SoftPC and VirtualPC are good emulators, it should be possible >to run the prn2file utility under them, since it makes no reference to >actual print queues outside of DOS. Note, also, that you have to exit >SignWriter and run prn2file again for each file you create. Ah...thanks for telling me this, Angus. You see, I do not know DOS like you do...I know exactly what I have to do in DOS to make SignWriter function, and to release copies of the software etc, but other than that I am a Macintosh person. I actually do not understand your instructions at the moment, not because I can't learn them, but because I am working on Macs so much that I have little experience with Windows and Dos commands. However, the Adobe Acrobat 4.0 came with both Windows and Mac versions, so I will install the Windows version on one of our Windows computers and try to create my first .PDF on a Windows computer...once I do that I bet I can figure out your instructions about GhostWriter. And you see, because I am not an MS-DOS person, I did not realize that I had to exit SignWriter to print to postscript...I tried and tried while I was still in SignWriter in SoftPC, and it never acknowledged the file, so obviously you know what you are doing... > I think that GhostScript is the best answer. It's licensed under >the GNU Public License, which means that it's free as long as you include >a copy of the source code. And you don't even need permission to >distribute it, as long as you don't charge anything more than the cost of >the distribution medium (on top of whatever you charge for your >SignWriter). It's also supposed to be faster and more versatile than >Acrobat Distiller. > > I forgot to mention that Ghostscript comes with a batch file >called ps2pdf.bat. As long as it's in the DOS path, people can just run >that from their DOS windows: "ps2pdf test.ps test.pdf". That ought to cut >down on the need for documentation. Smile. I will be happy to use GhostWriter, but I will need documentation personally, since I do not understand what a DOS path is...I copy files, and make directories and format disks and do all kinds of basic tasks in MS-DOS...but I have no idea what a DOS path is! And I know many other Macintosh people feel the same. You see the problem with the PC emulators, such as SoftPC and VirtualPC is not that they are not outstanding emulators - they are terrific programs...the problem is that Macintosh people do not know the interface they are emulating - so we install those programs to run DOS or Windows on our Macs, but we are disappointed when DOS and Windows don't work the same way the Mac operating system does..and so there is a gap in learning that has to be overcome. I know that there are Mac emulators for Windows too, and I am sure the problem reverses for Windows users! But I will learn! Thanks so much for this Angus- I feel real encouraged tonight - Val ;-) ----------------------------- Valerie Sutton SignWritingSite: https://www.SignWriting.org SignWriting List Archives: https://www.egroups.com/group/sw-l SignWriting List Help web page address coming soon ;-) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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