Re: OT: PDF generation capabilities in Mac OS X. What about Windows?

["Dov Isaacs" <isaacs@xxxxxxxxx>]

Paul et.al.:

The "built-in" support for PDF in MacOS X is something like PDF 1.2-- (i.e.
Acrobat 3 or less) with one or two features from PDF 1.3 (Acrobat 4) and PDF 1.4
(Acrobat 5).

In the general case, you cannot assume that MacOS X's native PDF facilities
will be able to display or otherwise manipulate documents that take advantage
of any PDF 1.3 or PDF 1.4 features. Nor will it be able to deal with PDF
export from InDesign or Illustrator 9.

To use your analogy, their support for PDF file generation is really somewhat 
"PDFWriter-like", not "Distiller-like."

If you really want to be able to read any arbitrary PDF file, you will need
Acrobat Reader. If you want to produce publication-quality PDF (i.e., anything
serious), you will need Acrobat. (The built-in PDF features of MacOS X cannot deal
with applications that have EPS graphics!)

No, Microsoft is not offering anything comparable in Windows. However, truth
may it be said is that the MacOS X flavor of PDF is so incompatible and back-rev,
that its being may be more problematic than it is worth. Let's hope that
"think different" doesn't continue to persist as "think incompatible"!

Sorry for the bad news.

        - Dov 


At 3/14/2001 11:37 AM, Nagai, Paul wrote:
>I was just reading about the PDF generation capability being build into Mac
>OS X:
>        http://www.apple.com/macosx/technologies/graphics.html
>
>Apparently it uses no Adobe technology (other than the PDF specification, of
>course). Apparently it will let any application running in that environment
>generate PDF files. I'm assuming, but don't know for sure, it'll be PDF
>Writer or Distiller-like ... and won't include the functionality of
>Exchange.
>
>Can anyone confirm that?
>
>Does anyone know if this sort of support is being planned for any of the
>Windows platforms? (Or is it already supported somewhere and I missed it?)
>
>This wouldn't eliminate my need for the authoring package since I require
>the functionality of Exchange, but it might for some people.
>------
>Paul Nagai


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