ANYONE KNOWS HOW TO SCRIPT IN GHOSTSCRIPT

[Jacob Schäffer]

On 04 mar 2005 Thomas Phinney of Adobe wrote a public notice regarding this issue(http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/UniqueID.html):

<snip>
Neither Type 1 nor OpenType CFF fonts require PostScript UniqueIDs. 

Back in the mid-80s, when printing might be done on a 57K serial connection and printers might have 8 MHz processors, the caching of device-generated bitmaps enabled by UniqueIDs made a noticeable speed difference. With today's connection bandwidths and printers, the printing speed difference was insignificant in our tests (conducted around 2002), and certainly not enough to outweigh the risks of collisions between UniqueIDs for different fonts and the trouble of tracking the ID numbers. 

For these reasons, Adobe stopped using UniqueIDs (and XUIDs) in our own OpenType CFF fonts. If we still made Type 1 fonts, we wouldn't use UniqueIDs for them, either. 

You may of course continue to use UniqueIDs, it's just that they are not necessary. 
</snip>

I personally would like this message to be confirmed by other Adobe representatives, since it's in clear conflict with most PostScript tech docs provided by Adobe.

Anyway, I don't believe that Ghostscript will add anything new though newer GS versions implement improved UniqueID and XUID handling. However, you can test for yourself and easily compare the results of Adobe Distiller (5.X to 8.X) and GPL Ghostscript 8.60 if you try our Grafikhuset Publi PDF superstructure software. Using Grafikhuset Publi PDF as an umbrella for 'PDF creation' you can set up 2 identical queues, one using Adobe Distiller and one using Ghostscript, print to these queues and then compare the PDF results in post-production.

The Grafikhuset Publi PDF trial version is fully functional for 30 days. Please see http://www.grafikhuset.net/publipdf/ for product details and http://www.grafikhuset.net/publipdf/download.htm if you want to download and test it.

Best regards / Med venlig hilsen
Jacob Schäffer  |  Chief Developer

Grafikhuset (House of Graphics)
Paradis Allé 22, Ramløse
DK-3200 Helsinge, Denmark
Phone: +45 4439 4400
Email: js at grafikhuset.dk
Web: www.grafikhuset.net


> -----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
> Fra: framers-bounces+js=grafikhuset.dk at lists.frameusers.com
> [mailto:framers-bounces+js=grafikhuset.dk at lists.frameusers.com
> ] På vegne af Michael Zaichenko
> Sendt: 24. oktober 2007 17:22
> Til: FrameUsers Users
> Emne: ANYONE KNOWS HOW TO SCRIPT IN GHOSTSCRIPT
>
>
> Hello Framers,
> This might be slightly OT but here is the issue. I'm PDFing
> my Frame files with Distiller 6.0. Now and then my publisher
> comes up with font issues - certain fonts come out wrongly
> like bold comes out as bold ital or small caps comes out as
> bold small caps, etc. Tracing it back I narrowed it down to
> fonts having identical XUIDs. Now, I can of course go ahead
> and remove IDs on all fonts but this would be a tedious task
> - I have over 5000 fonts library plus this doesn't seem to be
> the right solution as in couple instances it didn't help
> either. My publisher is using Docuprint machines and doesn't
> have much options of changing fonts there. I'm trying PDF995
> now and it seems like I have more control over the PDF
> process with a postscript language. I don't know much of
> Ghostscript at all - it was barely enough to change the
> compression method for the images, however it should be
> possible to remove XUIDs at PDFing step but how? I found a
> piece of a script that does something with XUIDs but this
> didn't seem to work at all - the PDF just wouldn't get created.
>
> The file I'm editing is called gs_pdfwr.ps - it's part of the
> pdf995 package.
>
> Please HELP.
>
> Michael
>
> P.S. I tried a lot of things in the attempt to solve it to no
> avail. Please do not suggest any other handling - I tried
> them all (sad but true...). I only would like to know how to
> remove XUID when my file gets created.
>
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