🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Mar6.000356.29906@leland.Stanford.EDU>, ehle@leland.Stanford.EDU (Robert Ehle) writes...
>Of those publishers supplying disks to printers, how many have been
>asked to supply Postscript files along with the application file?

I have been asked to do this quite often, especially for documents using
Publish & Subscribe as well as most of our PC stuff.

>We*ve recently been asked to this for a book and are finding it
>difficult in two ways:
> 
>1) A Postscript file (which as I understand it does more a less a
>tracing of the Quark or Pagemaker document so that the people doing
>the output don't have to worry about having all the right fonts or
>even having the desktop application)...

Not quite. The PostScript file containes all the information the image-
setter requires to define a page. Its not as simple as a tracing, its
an ASCII text file (remember that! its important!) made up of commands
to draw lines & cruves & all the other elements that make up a page.

Postscript files don't include font metrics. The font still has to be
downloaded to the printer before a postscript file is sent.



>... is always much larger than its
>application file counterpart. There's usually no way to fit a whole
>book on a floppy disk.

Yes, but have you tried compressing the file with Stuffit or Compactor
Pro? Because a PostScript file is just ASCII, you can get maximum 
compression - usually *95 - 98%* - and maybe enough to get it on a floppy.

If it won't fit on a floppy, you can use the 'segment' feature in both
of those programs to put it on as many floppies as it takes. ALL service
bureaus worth use those two programs - its essential. If your's doesn't,
find a new one who does. Never work with a service bureau who isn't *at
least* as smart as you are.

> 
>2) This is gotten around either by using a large capacity portable
>disk like SyQuest (which we don't have), or by breaking the Quark into
>smaller sections and then making Postscript files out of each of those
>sections. The printer actually prefers we supply smaller sections (in
>order to be able to isolate output problems before running a whole
>book), but we think breaking the book into pieces is begging for
>trouble,. Formatting it in pieces in the first place would throw out
>one of the major tools of desktop, global search and replace.

If you do break it into sections - do it as the last possible step in
the publishing process. Keep the document whole until sending it over.

Also, PRINT the document in sections. Print pages 1-10 as postscript file
1, 11-20 as postscript file 2, etc. There is nothing that says the 
postscript file has to be the whole document. This solves both problems
for you and your bureau.

>Is this a problem for anyone else? Is there an obvious solution I
>don't understand?
> 
> 
>-- 
>		
>				Rob Ehle
>				Stanford University Press
>				ehle@leland.stanford.edu

------
Tim Harincar			
soc1070@vx.cis.umn.edu