Re: Best common file format to use to create PDFs?
- From: Zak <duff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 14:32:05 +0100
Trimmed to context
On 30 May 2006, Dances With Crows<danSPANceswitTRAPhcrows@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Zak is obviously not a programmer, let alone an experienced one.
Using PDFlib from C isn't that difficult if you have some
experience in C, though.
You're right about not being an experienced programmer! The last thing
I tried was something like COBOL.
It is this conversion from my image file format to the internal
PDF format which I want to be done smoothly. I am wondering if it
is better to start with a GIF or a JPG or BMP or whatever to feed
into my PDF creation utility.
Depends on what you want. Get a good scan, and convert it to
black-and-white if you can do that without losing important info;
that'll make the PDF smaller. JPEG may introduce artifacts, so you
probably don't want to use that. TIFF G4 and TIFF LZW are
lossless, so you may want to use those.
Now that is getting much closer to a firm recommendation as to what to
use: TIFF group IV or TIFF LZW. Seems like the jpeg may not be so
suitable.
I should say that I am starting with a hard copy of a document
created on a word processor.
Yuck. The original WordPerfect or whatever file would've been a
much better place to start from.
Yes, I know what you meanbut the choice is not mine. These are
documents which have been sent to me. Some documents are of my reply to
other people and I do have the original word processor file for that.
PDFs with just text in them tend
to be smaller, display faster, and can look good at any zoom level.
PDFs made from images take a longer time to display, are larger,
and look terrible at high zoom levels.
I have got to live with this compromise. In most cases I will have to
use an image of the original hard copy.
I have preferred to scan to a GIF file rather than a TIFF because
I have assumed that when I circulate the basic image file among
certain people that the best balance between image size and the
best chance of them being able to see the file is a GIF.
? You're creating a PDF, not distributing a series of image files.
Until the PDF is finalised and all the security is set, the contents
will be in their raw state. So it will be a GIF, TIFF or whatever as it
gets adjusted or edited.
-- snip --- this has persisted to the
present day... even though TIFF-G4 compresses better than
*anything* else, and does so losslessly, iff your image is
black-and-white.
You make some quite fascinating, very interesting and relevant points
about the history of formats and why incompatibilities may still exist
today. I am persuaded by that alone to start using TIFF Group IV for
mono.
What if the original is in color? Maybe it is a line drawing or a motif
or (more rarely) shading of a area. Is TIFF group IV such an obvious
choice then? What is the alternative?
documents are often scanned to TIFF group 4 but is
that something which has the best chance of being seen on various
PCs in various organisations that I might need to send it to?
...what? If somebody can't figure out how to view a Group4 TIFF,
they're probably computer-illiterate.
I fully agree with you. But I have to operate within *their*
limitations. I sent some documents to a local councillor who said they
couldn't work out how to see them. They must be a hopeless case but I
still need to do what I can to make sure they do get to see my document.
As you say I am making PDFs now but that was my experience before I
decided that PDF removed the variables from how the image was or was not
seen.
Anyway, aren't you making a
PDF here? It doesn't matter what the original image format was if
it's been PDFed. Acrobrat Reader can decode the image data within
a PDF, as long as the PDF library/PDF writer/whatever that created
that PDF wasn't smoking crack. Anyway, HTH,
HTH: Yes, very much indeed. I am grateful. Thank you.
.
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