Re: PDF on debian
On Sun 12 Mar 2023 at 11:50:15 -0400, Dan Ritter wrote:
> Yassine Chaouche wrote:
> > Le 3/12/23 à 14:18, Brian a écrit :
> > > On Sun 12 Mar 2023 at 10:45:02 +0100, Yassine Chaouche wrote:
> > >
> > > > Le 3/9/23 à 15:33, Vincent Lefevre a écrit :
> > > > > it is strange that the choice was to generate
> > > > > PostScript and not PDF.
> > > >
> > > > Isn't postscript what printers read?
> > >
> > > 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.
Just an indication from my records for recent printers:
brian@desktop-new:~/printing/txt-records$ grep "pdl=" * | wc -l
719
brian@desktop-new:~/printing/txt-records$ grep "pdl=" * | grep "application/postscript" | wc -l
187
Hardly a majority.
Additionally: PostScript interpreters do not handle PDF files. PDF firmware does that..
brian@desktop-new:~/printing/txt-records$ grep "pdl=" * | grep "application/pdf" | wc -l
398
--
Brian.
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