RE: Identity-H encoding in PDFs on Linux?

[larry.kollar@xxxxxxxxxx]

> I can understand why some users might
> want, for whatever reason -- intellectual or to make a statement,
> to have and use an "alternative" solution for reading PDF files.
> But it isn't Adobe's fault for or for that matter our responsibility
> to resolve problems due to such an "alternative" reader failing
> to fully implement the PDF specification.

<humor attempt="lame" justification="Monday">
Well, Adobe *could* have made the PDF spec a little less
Byzantine.</humor>

The alternative readers definitely need some work. Having
Reader available for Linux is helpful, unless of course
you're running Linux on a PPC or other architecture... in
which case the alternatives are the only thing you have.

For those reasons and others, Linux documentation (when
it exists at all!) is more heavily single-sourced. Writers
use DocBook and output HTML for online and PS for print.
PDF is redundant in such an environment, and some projects
create a PDF version of their manual as an afterthought.
There are several attempts ongoing to create authoring tools
that make writing DocBook a bit more comfortable, which
could eventually lead to more tech writers using Linux.
Without a robust PDF infrastructure on Linux, PDF could
well become marginalized in a fast-growing arena.

"Hey, can you make me a PDF?"
"Sure, jump into the Distiller."
--
Larry Kollar, Senior Technical Writer, ARRIS
"Content creators are the engine that drives
value in the information life cycle."
    -- Barry Schaeffer, on XML-Doc


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