[WEB4LIB] PDF Muzzy Files Question

[Walt_Crawford at notes.rlg.org]

I must be misunderstanding something in this questions:

>Questions: ...  Is there a way to directly convert QuarkXPress 4.01 pages
to
>PDF without scanning?

Acrobat is _designed_ to convert PostScript files directly to PDF, and
since QuarkXPress prepares PostScript output, you certainly should not need
to print and scan. That would seem to be a suboptimal use of Acrobat.

With Acrobat 4, at least, (I never used an earlier version except on the
Reader side), you can drag-and-drop PostScript files directly to Distiller.
I believe Distiller has been improved to offer tighter output files and to
give you more control over optimization (e.g., Cites & Insights is
optimized for printing, but you can also optimize for display or, I think,
for typesetting).

Converting directly from PostScript files might increase the size of the
"first page" (because font information is stored as part of the PDF file),
particularly if you use lots of typefaces, but should substantially reduce
the size of any other pages, since they'd essentially be stored as text &
layout info. I haven't used Acrobat (Distiller or otherwise) for bitmapped
images. My experience with the first two issues of Cites & Insights does
suggest something, noting that both use three different typefaces
(including bullets): The 16-page January issue is 200K, while the 24-page
December issue was 250K. That suggests that individual pages are no more
than 6 or 7 K (not bad, since they contain about 4K of text), with the
first 100K or so used to store typeface information and overall layout.
Note that _directly-converted_ PDF files will print at the full resolution
of the output device (producing more sharply defined type on
higher-resolution printers).

Note that Acrobat 4 will install icons on MS Office toolbars giving you
_direct_ PDF output from within Office applications; I'm using Word
directly for all formatting. When I'm satisfied, I just click on the icon:
Distiller first produces intermediate .PS output, then distills that into
the final PDF file. (Incidentally, I use entirely TrueType typefaces, none
of them from Adobe: the conversion works beautifully.)

I'm no Acrobat expert, but I would expect that direct conversion from .PS
files would almost always be the way to go, and also suspect that the
Acrobat 4 upgrade is worthwhile.

-walt crawford-