World: r3wp

I created a group on the challenges on creating postscript documents 
directly from REBOL.

By having this ability, we could solve many problems related to printing 
with REBOL.

It was suggested in the PDF-Maker group that it could be possible 
to convert a DRAW block to postscript. I think that would be a good 
approach.

imo this is so big waste of time, it even does not deserve separate 
group. PS is good for what nowadays? Printers? Who does use it? At 
least for documents in corporate sphere, thre are only two kinds 
of docs which will survive imo - PDF, and XML based docs.

PS is good for what nowadays? Printers? Who does use it?

 <--- most printers today accept postscript input through the driver. 
 It's incredibly relevant if you want to create printing applications 
 directly with rebol.

I think, PS is good for printing too. I haven't looked deep into 
it, so I can't say, if PDF is enough. Does printers understand PDF 
directly, as they do PS? If not, PS is the way.

What does Adobe say about those formats? What is the goal (or idea 
or context area) with PS, and what is the goal (idea/context area) 
with PDF?

PDF is also only a subset of postscript, created so you don't need 
to compile your docs everytime they need to be displayed. PDFs are 
static. You still need postscript to do the actual printing AFAIK. 
The trick would be not necesarily to generate a PS file, but the 
data that could be fed to the printer through LP.

there are full docs on how both pdf and postscript work available 
from adobe.com

we now have big printers, which do understand PDF ....

OK, if for postscript reasongs, then be it. I just hope we are not 
about to resurrect things like PS Viewer in View or something like 
that ...

pekr, this is mostly to make printing easier. postscript is also 
very cross platform.

A couple of thoughts: 1. ".doc" is probably more prevalent. I see 
a lot and I do work in the corporate world. In fact, most of my document 
correspondence with IBM is with either Word files or Excel spreadsheets. 
(Not that I am suggesting doing any one of teh two, though being 
able to create .doc and .xls files natively would be incredible). 
2. I use PS only to later translate them with Distiller to pdf. But 
then again,  I have the regular version of Acrobat so I can. It's 
not that I want to but Pekr has a point about the usefullness and 
popularity of pdf. 3. For professional printing use, I suppose PS 
is still very useful. But I think that is the high-end side.

I guess what I am saying is, is there anything that a pdf doc can't 
do or support that you want to have?

BTW, can you imagine being able to create pdf forms, populate them, 
and save the data? That would be cool. You have to have the non-free 
version of acrobat to do that.

Trying to produce .doc and .xls files = lots of trouble!

Thinking a little into the future, OpenDocument is probably a better 
choice: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office

I'm not sure there is anything particularly highend about postscript 
today. It was originally created to make printers output graphics 
somewhat consistently with what is shown on screen. Early printers 
only had this in hardware, but most printers today can act as software 
postscript printers.

Also I'm trying not to be document centric. That comes before the 
postscript part. Postscript is any kind of graphics.

Gabriele mentioned that a postscript emitter wouldn't be very hard 
to do, compared to PDF.

My concern is that once you have the PS file, you do have to find 
a way to print it.

well, if you use unix systems such as MacOSX, you don't need a PS 
file. it can be piped directly to LP. For Windows there are freeware 
utilities like Printfile available.

The reason I have anything more to do with PS is that  I use Pagestream 
for all my DTP and it has some quirks with its "save as pdf" So I've 
had to print to a PS driver, then convert it with Distiller.

http://www.dfanning.com/tips/ps_printing_windows.html

James - world is moving away from xls and doc, even MS - "open" XML 
formats will prevail. As for IBM - they are already internally on 
ODF format (internal info)

Well, it something to weigh out for sure.  A couple thoughts. That 
link references 98 and NT so back in those days, yeah, we had PS 
on Mac and for me, the Amiga. Today, however, wouldn't pdf's be the 
bomb? And other, less technical, people don't have to do much to 
print them. They also don't have to worry about sending them to others.

Pekr, this observation is based on my current experience. I have 
yet to get an XML doc from any IBM'er.

It makes sense to be able to produce both PS and PDF from within 
REBOL, and it'll help solve the printing problem to some degree, 
I think.

Hey, you guys are the ones who do the work so have at it.

I know they are even working on some distro, to attack corporate 
sphere somewhere next year :-) ... of course it depends, how informed 
our IBMers are here :-)

Geomol - I just saw prototype (live one) of Java (Eclipse) based 
Workplace - Notes, ODF integrated ... and Notes is very strong collaborative 
tool ... version 8 will be pure Java ....

I have been looking for a simple "print BMP" program for windows, 
any links anyone? I found a few, but they are not suitable for automatic 
printing.

Is it Lotus Notes, you're talking about?

dir

ls

funny. dos in other window. oops.

PDFs are more "sexy" yes, but this is really only about the brains 
and brawns required to send graphical data directly from rebol to 
a printer in a proper way.

Well, at IBM  it depends on whom you're dealing with. We have worked 
with the guys at the Watson labs and they are very progressive. The 
people in the field that we know, however, are all Word/Excel/PowerPoint 
. And they love their Lotus Notes.

Found a way to print images in windows: >mspaint /p file.bmp

Grats! :)

mspaint stays hidden. works nicely!

If only mspaint could be like Canvas!

Henrik, I think, supporting PS is a good thing! (TM) And we can still 
have PDF for those, who likes that. Has anyone done some work on 
PS in REBOL so far? Any scripts anywhere?

james, :-) :-)

I saw that MS Paint is receiving a technological upgrade in Vista: 
The palette has been moved from the bottom of the window to the top.

LOL

Wow!

Now that MS Innovation!

:D

When it can display a Workbench screen then I'll be impressed.

it will be interesting to see how rebol will run under it