🚀 go-pugleaf

Apologies if this is a FAQ ...

I'm in several groups that periodically exchange documents by email.  Most
people have started exchanging Postscript -- so that the text is typeset,
so that figures can be included, etc.

But -- it seems that if more than three or so different sites send
Postscript files to each other, at least one of those files won't work
on the printers or viewers at the some of the other sites.  Typically one
or more of the Postscript files will fail to print/display, or will lock up
printers, or crash viewers, at some random subset of the recipients.
Meanwhile, the errant file works fine at the sender's site (though the
sender is probably having trouble with some file from another site).

This happens repeatedly with multiple groups trying to exchange Postscript.

There doesn't seem to be anything like "portable Postscript" -- a
Postscript file seems to be like a tape written on a poorly-adjusted
tapedrive, which is readable by that drive but no other.  It's a roll of
the dice whether you'll be able to look at a file you get from some other
site.

Is this considered acceptable behavior in the Postscript community?  If
not, is there some way to judge if a given file is "portable Postscript",
or are there Postscript implementations which are notorious for failing to
interoperate (and should thus be avoided)?

						John Kimball

DOMAIN: jkimball@src.honeywell.com        Honeywell Systems and Research Center
        postmaster@src.honeywell.com      Computer Sciences/Software Technology
UUCP:   <any-smart-host>!srcsip!jkimball  3660 Technology Drive, MN65-2100
VOICE:  +1 612/782-7343   FAX: 7438       Minneapolis, MN  55418-1006
DISCLAIMER:  The only opinion Honeywell authorizes me to have is:
                          "Thermostats are Good"