Re: PDF on debian
On 2023-03-12, Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> wrote:
>> >
>> > Many (most?) printers do not understand PostScript. The
>> > printing system itself is based on processing PDFs.
>> >
>>
>> Oh.
>> Times have changed!
>> I thought it was the other way around.
>
> You are correct, Yassine.
>
> PostScript is an interpreted language. PDF is a compressed
> archive data format which includes simplified PostScript commands,
> images, fonts, and other chunks of data.
>
> Apart from Windows-derived GDI printers, the majority of laser
> and inkjet printers have a PostScript interpreter built in, even
> if its primary use is in interpreting PDF files.
>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript
However, the cost of implementation was high; computers output raw PS code that
would be interpreted by the printer into a raster image at the printer's
natural resolution. This required high performance microprocessors and ample
memory. The LaserWriter used a 12 MHz Motorola 68000, making it faster than any
of the Macintosh computers to which it attached. When the laser printer engines
themselves cost over a thousand dollars the added cost of PS was marginal. But
as printer mechanisms fell in price, the cost of implementing PS became too
great a fraction of overall printer cost; in addition, with desktop computers
becoming more powerful, it no longer made sense to offload the rasterization
work onto the resource-constrained printer. By 2001, few lower-end printer
models came with support for PostScript, largely due to growing competition
from much cheaper non-PostScript ink jet printers, and new software-based
methods to render PostScript images on the computer, making them suitable for
any printer; PDF, a descendant of PostScript, provides one such method, and has
largely replaced PostScript as de facto standard for electronic document
distribution.
On high-end printers, PostScript processors remain common, and their use can
dramatically reduce the CPU work involved in printing documents, transferring
the work of rendering PostScript images from the computer to the printer.
Reply to: