} > Well, so with your scheme, you like installing a FILE /PS printer and } > then asking everyone who might want to view the file to install } > ghostscript. What a joke! } Where did I say I like it? I didn't. All I'm saying is that PDF is just } one type of way to store data. There's nothing particularly special } about it except that creating them generally requires that you spend } money, which I don't see as an asset.
I guess you haven't paid much attention to this thread -- there are quite a few *free* PDF printer drivers. and of course, there are several free PDF viewers [I use Foxit in preference to the [also freeware] Adobe one].
} > The real bottom line answer to your original question [as to why PDF } > is special] is that PDF is *standard*. Essentially everyone already } > *has* a PDF viewer. If you're going to install a special } > printer-driver to generate a file-image of your print job, a person } > would be really foolish to pick anything other than PDF. } PDF is as "standard" as many other document formats. More popular? } Perhaps. But why is it more popular? That's exactly the question I asked } "Why is it special" meaning more popular. Years ago Postscript was more } popular and PDF was up and coming.
PS was never popular as a file-format: PS *printers* were more popular than, although a lot more expensive than, printers using other rendering technologies, but Adobe had a hammerlock on PS and you had to license a fairly expensive pile of *very* proprietary stuff to add PS-capability to your printer. [and you talk about 'standards not dominated by one company' and can actually mention PostScript with a straight face..:o)]
Adobe came up with PDF as a variant of PostScript *specifically* to be used as an open file format. It was simplified [rendering PostScript is really quite a tricky technical proposition] and as a marketing ploy [they gave away the PDF reader for free [and worked to get it to integrate cleanly and easily with windows, and work as a browser plugin, etc]] and basically it worked.
PS was still a nightmare to "interpret", didn't integrate cleanly with the OS, the only real rendering engine you could find, Peter Deutch's "GhostScript" wasn't supported by Adobe [I believe he had to implement it by reverse-engineering PS from the Blue and Red books] and [back then, at least -- I haven't looked at it in years] it was ugly and big and a pain to install, didn't play-nice with windows or browsers, etc... [interesting, about the only thing I use GhostScript for is that it includes a PS->PDF translator, which I use as a command-line tool on our Unix servers..:o)]
} > HTML is a possibility, but not every app can create HTML output and it } > is often very funky/ugly in different browsers. ...
} I'm sorry you're having difficulty with HTML.
Not "difficulty", just observing that HTML was designed for one environment [online web content] and doesn't do a very good job when pressed into service in a different one [actual *document* description]. And it isn't even very good at describing online web content. If you're at all picky about how your stuff looks you'll grow to HATE HTML: it is such a poorly specified language and its implementations are so varying and [often] incompatible that it is quite hard to get web pages to "look the same" from one browser to the next.
Also, in the context of this thread: how, exactly, do you email HTML-ized versions of the Quicken reports to yourself (which you claimed that you do). I just looked and it doesn't seem that HTML is one of the "print" options in Q2009 -- did I miss that? [not that I'd use it, since I think that HTML is near-worthless for *careful* document formatting]. In fact, almost NONE of the apps I use that generate docs provide HTML output [e.g, Access, and the two different apps I use for music-notation].
} ... HTML has another advantage } in that it's editable and simpler to use. That's why web pages are in } HTML instead of PDF.
No, that's not why web pages are in HTML, instead of PDF. Sigh. And it certainly isn't simpler to use: try doing a view-source on some "modern" web page and then come back and tell us how simple it is.
} ... HTML is standard and not dominated by one company } (cough, Adobe, cough).
Only someone who hasn't tried doing much with HTML would argue that it is "standard". It is non-standard in multiple dimensions [both in terms of vagueness in the spec and in the vagaries of the way different browsers render it]. And I don't exactly understand what "dominated" means in this context. There are a bunch of PDF-generators, all by independent parties [and many free], the Adobe reader is free, and there are other [free] readers [I prefer Foxit]. In fact, PDF's being an open-standard and not proprietary was a requirement before the US gov't standardized on using PDF for its documents [No, you cannot download IRS booklets or passport applications in HTML format..:o)]
} ... I'm no fan of closed formats like PDF and Word, } that cannot be easily shared and built upon by using simple and freely } available tools like a simple editor.
Well, first off if you'd just said that at the beginning that'd shorten this thread: that you believe that PDF is "too proprietary" for your tastes. Although it is odd, because PDF is **LESS** proprietary that PostScript and you argued in favor of PS over PDF. [and on the editing front, no one in his right mind would edit PS in a "simple editor" [you've clearly never looked at much PS source-code. yes, it is *possible*, theoretically, to do so [since it is a plain-text file] but it is WAY too difficult to do by hand [take it from someone who has done it]]] and there are *bunches* of PDF-generation choices that don't involve having to purchase Acrobat [Perl has a fairly nice suite of PDF-generation modules].
} HTML can do headers and footers with no problems. Page numbers and 8 } 1/2x11-ness is important to you only because you think in terms of } physical papers. As stated I don't care about physical papers.
No, you didn't state that at all. You argued that a PS-printer-driver together with Ghostscript was a more sensible choice than a PDF-printer-driver and a PDF-renderer. If you don't want to print
*at*all*, that's fine -- then why did you stick your oar into a discussion of "how to print"?
} ... Ever here } the term paperless? If so then why do you care about 8 1/2x11? It is you } sir who is stuck in past paradigms, not me.
Not at all. The nice part about PDF is that it is a *BETTER* document-description format than HTML is [and it is the -successor- to PS, and so even *thinking* about using PS as a doc-description file format is
*very* "past paradigm"]. Sometimes the specifics and format of a document are important. When you don't care how it actually looks, then HTML is fine [although not every programs will produce HTML for you and so you'll still have the problem of how to capture their output].
In terms of past paradigms, actually I think the 'future' of *document* layout is probably along the lines of the 'docbook' work, but it is still way too early in its development to use it for general use [IMO]. But I
*can* see a day when there'll be a 'docbook' option for generating reports. I
*don't* see HTML
_ever_ becoming a standard for actual, serious documents
-- that's not its purpose and it does way too poor a job of it.
/Bernie\