Hi,

I installed Amiga PgS 4.0r7, and was sure to glad to see PDF exporting is
working fine.

Just a point though - cropped pictures have their crops removed when
exported to a PDF doc, so the original full uncropped image appears.
Could I suggest that PgS permanently crops these images to the desired
values befor exporting to PDF - I guess the PDF spec doesn't make any
provision for including pictures with crops associated? Applying crops
beforehand would at least ensure the PDF filsesize would be smaller too.

Speaking of which - images are embedded in PDFs as ASCIIHex, making eg. a
750KB PgS file around 3.5MB. Would it be possible to use LZW
compression?

Finally, I've seen some mention of embedding fonts. I'd like to say Me
Too (along with kerning pairs), as I certainly would like to see my docs
viewed as I originally made them.

Is there a doc or history file somewhere which lists exactly what I now
have in the various revisions since 3.4ß9? For example, I haven't
figured out how to import HTML files except as plain ASCII, which of
course means all the HTML elements appear.

Has there been any improvement in the drawing tools? Only played with
them in 4.0r7 very little, but so far seems the same as PgS3. I
certainly would love to at least be able to change curved segments to
line segments and vice versa. Will this /ever/ see the light of day?

Apart from that so far so good. Now back to playing some more :^))).

Bye,

--
Steve Bowman - Sydney, Australia

Software suppliers are trying to make their software packages more
'user-friendly'.... Their best approach, so far, has been to take all
the old brochures, and stamp the words, 'user-friendly' on the cover.
-- Bill Gates

Hej Steve

Den 06-Jun-00 skrev Steve & Ulli Bowman:

> Hi,
>
> I installed Amiga PgS 4.0r7, and was sure to glad to see PDF
> exporting is working fine.

[snip]

> Speaking of which - images are embedded in PDFs as ASCIIHex, making
> eg. a 750KB PgS file around 3.5MB. Would it be possible to use LZW
> compression?

As far as I can recall the problem with LZW was the licence to use it
(quite expensive). What I do is compressing the PDF file with Zip
(using the emailware program MiraWizARC and Zip from Aminet) as Zip
file from the Amiga can be unzip'ed on a PC using eg. WinZip.
Unfortunately MiraWizARC does not support multiple volumes

An example: A 90Kb Pgs file = 1.4Mb Pdf file = 55Kb Zip file

Anders

G'day Anders Drejer,

On the subject of "[PageStreamSupport] Re: Amiga PgS4.0r7 and PDF", you
spoke thus:

> As far as I can recall the problem with LZW was the licence to use it
> (quite expensive).

I wonder if the licence Deron already must have (for TIFF saving when
exporting pics) would cover this situation?

> What I do is compressing the PDF file with Zip
> (using the emailware program MiraWizARC and Zip from Aminet) as Zip
> file from the Amiga can be unzip'ed on a PC using eg. WinZip.

True, but a little annoying. And what about Mac users? There is no
StuffIt for the Amiga.

Bye,

--
Steve Bowman - Sydney, Australia

"I've just made a deal that will keep the Empire out of here forever."

In a message of 06-Jun-00 Anders Drejer wrote:

>> Speaking of which - images are embedded in PDFs as ASCIIHex, making
>> eg. a 750KB PgS file around 3.5MB. Would it be possible to use LZW
>> compression?

> As far as I can recall the problem with LZW was the licence to use it
> (quite expensive). What I do is compressing the PDF file with Zip
> (using the emailware program MiraWizARC and Zip from Aminet) as Zip
> file from the Amiga can be unzip'ed on a PC using eg. WinZip.
> Unfortunately MiraWizARC does not support multiple volumes

> An example: A 90Kb Pgs file = 1.4Mb Pdf file = 55Kb Zip file

I thought LZW was a public available algorithm, so I wouldn't think there
should be any problems of incorporating it into PGS -- except it naturally
will take Deron some time.

I think it is much more important to embed the fonts. When I tell APDF
to print a PDF file generated with PGS it reports an error: "Unknown
font format" whatever that means.

My need for PDF is to make PDF files viewable from my homepage, and
well... a two page document with a size of 5.5 MB is perhaps a bit too
much to download.

I know it can be zipped, but that will not enable Voyager or any other
browser to view it directly. It is very nice that it can be zipped to 242
kB, but this is mostly only suited for transfer purposes.

Uffe Holst

In a message of 06-Jun-00 Steve & Ulli Bowman wrote:

> True, but a little annoying. And what about Mac users? There is no
> StuffIt for the Amiga.

Isn't StuffIt simply binhex? I know very little about the Mac, so I might
be wrong But binhex is available for the Amiga.

Uffe Holst

G'day Uffe Holst,

On the subject of "[PageStreamSupport] Re: Amiga PgS4.0r7 and PDF", you
spoke thus:

>> True, but a little annoying. And what about Mac users? There is no
>> StuffIt for the Amiga.
>
> Isn't StuffIt simply binhex? I know very little about the Mac, so I

Oh no, it definitely is not. Stuffit (which generates .sit archives) is
the de facto compression standard for Mac, along the lines of LHA. But
StuffIt will automatically recognize binhex files and decode them and
will also unstuff any .sit or .sea archives it finds.

Binhex came about as a solution to transfer Mac files (which commonly
contain both a data and resource fork) via 7-bit e-mail protocols, along
the lines of UUencode or Base64 found in e-mailers.

Bye,

--
Steve Bowman - Sydney, Australia

"A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack."
-- Yoda

On 06-Jun-00, Uffe Holst wrote:

> I thought LZW was a public available algorithm, so I wouldn't think
> there should be any problems of incorporating it into PGS -- except it
> naturally will take Deron some time.

LZW compression is a patented process, and use of it in a commercial
program requires a license from Unisys.

Lempel, Ziv and Welch do not get any of the money from this license.

I believe the patent runs out in about 3 years.

Regards
--
Don Cox
doncox@enterprise.net

On 04-Apr-25, Don Cox wrote:

>LZW compression is a patented process, and use of it in a commercial
>program requires a license from Unisys.

>Lempel, Ziv and Welch do not get any of the money from this license.

>I believe the patent runs out in about 3 years.

At one time, Unisys claimed that the mere capability of unpacking a
LZW file without license was a violation of their copyright, whether
or not the "violator" was actually using their code. Whether that was
claim was eventually affirmed in court, I don't know.

But Deron does have license to use it: otherwise TIFF import and the
TIFF export options could not be implemented.

--Geoff

--
ggass@teleport.com Geoffrey A. Gass Foulecourt Press

G'day Don Cox,

On the subject of "[PageStreamSupport] Re: Amiga PgS4.0r7 and PDF", you
spoke thus:

> On 06-Jun-00, Uffe Holst wrote:
>
>> I thought LZW was a public available algorithm, so I wouldn't think
>> there should be any problems of incorporating it into PGS -- except it
>> naturally will take Deron some time.
>
> LZW compression is a patented process, and use of it in a commercial
> program requires a license from Unisys.
>

But Deron /does/ already use LZW, and so must have a licence. I guess
it's a matter of whether his licence would cover LZW in PDF too.

Bye,

--
Steve Bowman - Sydney, Australia

"I assure you I seek only knowledge"--Aldous Gajic

At 09:51 06.06.00 -0800, you wrote:
>>I believe the patent runs out in about 3 years.

Seems off topic.. but...

Yep, the US patent runs out on 2003. But I think it can
be extended.... and not to forget: IBM also has patents on LZW.
Unisys also claims to have non US patents but I have not yet
been able to find the patent in the european patent office.
So I wouldn't bet the situation gets solved in 2003.

>At one time, Unisys claimed that the mere capability of unpacking a
>LZW file without license was a violation of their copyright, whether
>or not the "violator" was actually using their code. Whether that was
>claim was eventually affirmed in court, I don't know.

Yep, there are various rumours about the license. For instance,
I just found a new book from MicroSoft claiming no license
is needed for loading. Obviously this info is outdated, to
say at least.

However, there have been certain cases where it was legal to
use LZW, despite that Unisys now seems to "forget" that it allowed
the usage of LZW in freeware some time ago. Nowadays you
usualy can't get a license for freeware from Unisys even if you
are willing to pay (experiences from developers can be found
on the net).

Now they even want you to obtain an extra license just for publishing GIF
images on your WWW site. Wich means, you need a license for using
GIF on your WWW site or you need to generate the GIF files using
software that has such an Internet license. For instance,
MicroSoft use GIF in their software... but IMHO you are not allowed
to publish GIF files generated by MS products on the web.
There is also a comment on the MS site...

--
Wolf Faust Tel: +49-69-5486556
mailto:wfaust@wfaust.de Fax: +49-69-95409598
http://www.coloraid.de Mobile: +49-179-6924769