RE: [Axiom-developer] address@hidden: Patch to produce thebook in the ${MNT}/${SYS}/doc directory]

[Bill Page]

On Firday, March 27, 2004 12:00 PM Tim wrote:

> >
> > - produce a postscript file and then translate it into PDF format
> >   (using a command like ps2pdf). There might be issues with 
> >   the quality of the produced PDF file (issue related to true
> >   type font 1 vs. 3 format).
> 
> I find this command gives me fuzzy output and have not been 
> able to find a good way to produce readable PDF files.

I think the problem is not with the quality of the PDF that
is produced but rather with the PDF reader/view software.
Newer versions of Ghostscript (since at least 7.x, I think)
and Acrobat Reader (newest version 6), have very good display
of type 1 fonts.

> Also, the PDF files are huge.

Usually, compared to postscript PDF files are quite small.
But of course compared to original LaTeX and dvi files,
PDF is usually larger. But if you are seeing differences
that qualify as huge, then perhaps there may be problems
with the choice of the format of included graphic files.

> 
> This gets back to the subject of handling the axiom 
> documentation. Clearly we're going to have hundreds of doc 
> files. We're going to need a way to organize them, navigate 
> among them, etc. PDF format seems to make that process 
> harder. However, PDFs are widely readable. The way foreword 
> (:-)) seems uncertain.
> 

I think it would be a mistake to not to include PDF as
at least one of the standard formats.

Regards,
Bill Page.