[time-nuts] DJVU and PDF

[Chuck Harris]

Mike S wrote:
> At 05:48 PM 12/12/2010, Chuck Harris wrote...
>> Chris Albertson wrote:
>>> PDF is the native display format used by the Mac.
>>
>> No it isn't. Postscript is the standard internal language. It is also
>> the internal language of Windows, and Linux.
>
> LOL. For someone who presumes to correct others, you should know that
> *nix predates PostScript/pdf/etc. _Some_ Linux _documentation_ is in
> encapsulated Postscript (which is different than .pdf), but that is in
> no way a basis for a claim that it is "the standard internal language,"
> which is wrong in many more ways than one.

I am quite aware that unix predates Adobe.  My use of unix started in
1976 or 1977, which also predates Adobe.

It wasn't clear to me that Chris was talking about documentation.  I wasn't.

> Chris was correct in a way, since .pdf _is_ the native metafile format
> for recent versions of the Mac OS. Of course, in Windows, it's .wmf
> (Windows Metafile Format), not .pdf.
>
> The closest to a _standard_ "internal display language" in current OSs
> might be HTML or XML. .pdf and .wmf are both proprietary, and in no way
> standards.

My reference was to outputs from applications level programs.  Postscript
was adopted by Mac in the mid 1980's as the standard printer output language.
Linux did the same in the '90s, taking advantage of the cheaper PS printers.
Unless I am mistaken (I will confess that I pay as little attention to
windows as possible), windows does (or did) the same thing... using, I believe,
embedded postscript.

If you want to use a non postscript printer in any of these OS's, you will
have to use a program (driver) that renders postscript into whatever the
printer likes to see.

I shall try to live up to the level of perfection you inspire.

-Chuck Harris