PDF output

[Groucho]

Hello again, Jim. I hope you haven’t hung up yet.

I was thinking ultimately you may try OpenOffice.org. Ooo has its own pdf converter, different from Apple’s Quartz, that doesn’t apparently put a white backdrop behind the text. I tried to add a watermark back of a pdf produced by Ooo, and it does work. The application lets you choose a colored background for the whole document too. Think you might give it a try. By the way, NWP can export into Ooo.

Henry.

[greenmorpher]

The Apple PDF engine is pretty ordinary. Amateur stuff, really, not professional. Pity.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or http://www.worsleypress.com

[Elbrecht]

Hi -

as posted before, Stone's Create "Prints"/"Saves" background color to PDF - i.e. why it's not Apple's PDF engine fault. You just don't have background color option with Nisus, to print or not as you like. That's just what Create does. No selling involved...

HE

[greenmorpher]

Hi -

as posted before, Stone's Create "Prints"/"Saves" background color to PDF - i.e. why it's not Apple's PDF engine fault. You just don't have background color option with Nisus, to print or not as you like. That's just what Create does. No selling involved...

Sure, Elbrecht, and so it should. It's a DTP program and that's a different beast. It works in frames and layers. So do a lot of other DTP programs. Canvas for example (which I use -- no selling involved either, its a legacy program although if anyone wants to email ACD in Vancouver and harass them about developing a new Mac version, we users would all be grateful) in which you can save a background color.

But look at the Canvas PDF engine's front end -- that's what I mean by professional. Compare those options with what's available in the Apple PDF machine, including the "Save As PDF" and the "Save As" options in Preview. Pretty punk.

For all that, since in NWP you can insert a 'fixed on page' image that's behind the text, I don't see why they can't put in page color using that facility (i.e. an automated variation, where it created a page-size box, set it to stay with the page always at the back, the only option being the fill color).

Canvas allows you to set the page color, which is not a layer, OR you can add a layer with a page-size box as background for individual pages or all pages in a document. Either way, you get a colored background in a PDF. But that is a DTP program.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or http://www.worsleypress.com

[Elbrecht]

Geoff -

I got used to Stone's PStill instead - and in trouble we still have Apple's PS to set ALL things right in Acrobat...

HE

[greenmorpher]

Hiya Elbrecht

Yes, PStill looks good in many ways, but I wonder why he has that as a separate program? I understand the marketing imperative -- you can make money from selling each program separately -- Adobe has been the master of that strategy for many, many years -- but the incorporation of so many capabilities into OS X provides a great "inteegrated" niche opportunity, I would have though (wearing my marketing hat).

Canvas showed the way with everything integrated -- it handles raster, vector, type, and animations all on the same page, and that palette I displayed is the "save as" to PDF option in Canvas, using Canvas's own PDF translator. ACD which bought Canvas also misread the integrated opportunity -- they're struggling to pick it up again on Windows.

I'm puzzled by Stone's insistence on font translation to PS-1 format. As I understand it, TT fonts are PS wrapped up rather cleverly. I have another program which does have PDFing integrated, PhotoLine, from Germany, whose creators insist on TT format for fonts! Huh. Canvas handles them both without a blink; so does the Apple PDF engine if it comes to that.

Anyway -- we're straying far from the topic here. Let's just agree that Apple's PDFing arrangements are pretty simple and not up to anything much.

It's really PDFing graphics where the weakness of Apple's PDF capabilities shows up. No real control beyond guess work. However, they've been good enough for me to PDF some tables from NWE/P which allowed me to then import them into Canvas.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or www.worsleypress.com

[Elbrecht]

Hi Geoff -

separate programs are the UNIX/NeXT/OS X way from the start - and Stone was the first to offer apps for NeXT. And because I did font customizing in the nineties - what meant Type 1 - I am used to PS fonts and still use Fontographer by and now.

HE

BTW: Fontographer 5 for MAC is back!

[greenmorpher]

...separate programs are the UNIX/NeXT/OS X way from the start

Well, not really. I would have thought OS X itself is the opposite of that with all its built-in bits. I remember an early Apple presentation lauding integration. Integration has also been the Apple way from way back -- look at AppleWorks in its first and second iterations. Wonderful programs.

BTW: Fontographer 5 for MAC is back!

Say what? That's good news indeed. Wonderful program. TypeStyler is too. http://typestyler.com/. I very much fear the delay between the old and new was too long, however, and so much of what it did that was unique has appeared in other general graphics and DTP programs.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or www.worsleypress.com

[kcjimmyk]

Hello again, Jim. I hope you haven’t hung up yet.

I was thinking ultimately you may try OpenOffice.org. Ooo has its own pdf converter, different from Apple’s Quartz, that doesn’t apparently put a white backdrop behind the text. I tried to add a watermark back of a pdf produced by Ooo, and it does work. The application lets you choose a colored background for the whole document too. Think you might give it a try. By the way, NWP can export into Ooo.

Henry.

Hi Henry, and thanks again. I have been offline for a while, trying to get Pages to serve my purposes. It has major issues with Hebrew though. (although I don't write documents in Hebrew, I quote some.)

I have tried Open Office, but I find it too Windows-like if you know what I mean. I have been mac since the model SE.

Thanks again.

Jim

[Groucho]

Why, Jim, you don’t really have to wrestle with Open Office. Just open a NWP file and convert it. Plug your nostrils if that helps you. You may need to fix sections starting from an odd page, perhaps, not much else. Its import engine has improved a lot recently. Its interface has not, you’re right.

Henry.

[exegete77]

Or look at NeoOffice [currently at 3.1.1] which was the original port to Mac OS X. It is smoother and more stable than OO 3.2.1. I keep up with OO, but if I need critical work done, NeoOffice is my choice (for cross-platform work) - always.

[kcjimmyk]

Plug your nostrils if that helps you.
Henry.

LOL!!!!!

You are right of course Henry.

Thanks

Jim