[R-390] Y2K Reprinting

[James A. (Andy) Moorer]

PDF is an open format. It has been submitted to ISO, the international 
standards group. It will be called ISO 32000 when it is issued. It has been 
open for years. You can find details here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/adobepdf.html

You can download the spec itself here:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference.html

It is pretty geeky, but it is published and open.

Note that some of the more fancy features remain proprietary, but I doubt if 
we really need to rotate 3D models in real-time for a boatanchor manual 
(hmm - I wonder if I could make an image where all the gears turn properly . 
. . have to look into that).

Please don't hesitate to use any tools you can find to make PDF. There are 
many public-domain ones. Be sure to test the resulting file to make sure you 
can read it and it looks like you expect. You want to calibrate the 
reliability of the freebies - any freebies. But my understanding is that 
there are many inexpensive or free PDF encoders that work great. Google 
"make PDF file" and you will get pages of them.

Adobe does offer a toolkit and SDK for money that is guaranteed to produce 
valid, legal PDF files, but you don't have to use it.

(I happen to work for Adobe - this has been a paid political announcement. I 
haven't checked out the public-domain ones myself since I get to use the 
real thing.)


James A. (Andy) Moorer
www.jamminpower.com


----- Original Message ----- 
>
>> PDF has replaced it for the most part. Problem is that PDF is 
>> copyrighted,
>> so you have to pay to generate them. And that I do not really have.
>