[Fsf-india] Re: Free Software Magazine { COMMERCIAL }

[Radhakrishnan CV]

On Sat, 19 Jan 2002 at 00:24, Hong Feng wrote:
   
   Why the paper copies from us is easier to read?
   
   Simple reason, the paper copy is made with typesetter and
   output at 1200dpi, this is most laser printer can not reach
   today.

Very true. However, why shouldn't we exploit the full potential of 
the software we use to generate the pdf's.

I have generated a pdf of the preface by RMS which is only one page 
with an image of RMS in it and is available at:

  http://www.tug.org.in/rms-preface.pdf

Just compare the sizes of the pdfs:

[cvr@danube] [03:28pm] [~/fsf-journal/final3]: ls -l *preface.pdf
  24 -rw-rw-r--    1 cvr   cvr    22185 Jan 18 15:27 rms-preface.pdf
1892 -rw-rw-r--    1 cvr   cvr  1930402 Jan 15 07:44 RMS_preface.pdf
   
It can be viewed in xpdf, gv and acroread. The TeX sources are
embedded in the pdf itself as an unused object, you can extract the
sources by a simple command:

 pdftosrc rms-preface.pdf 1

[pdftosrc <file.pdf> <object number>]

This will result in a text file rms-preface.1 which you may rename 
to preface.tex (or any name you like) and play with it.

Just like the html, the pdf format provides for hyperlinking the
URL's or other cross referencing items in a document which is lost
in the technique with which the original pdf's are generated.

pdfTeX which is a Free Software provides this power over and above
any of the existing proprietary counterparts and we should make 
known to our users all these potential. Also it saves us from 
distributing the sources separately.


-- 
Radhakrishnan