TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:RE: Word printing problem From:"Peter Ring" <prc -at- prc -dot- dk> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 12 Nov 2003 17:25:10 +0100
Eric,
The CPU (central processing unit) used in a printer is a fast state-of-the-art CPU
most often designed specificly for use in printers.
Printout is a very complex process:
First the application (program) has a printout function, which converts its internal
data format to nice pages, placing text and images correctly on the pages. This
printout function is to be written by the programmer of the application, but the
programmer can use some standard functions from for example Microsoft.
Then the printer driver on the computer is converting the output from the application
to a data format, the printer can understand, for example a version of HP's PCL or
Adobe's PS (PostScript). The result is a printer file, which most often is spooled by a
special spool function and then in portions transferred to the printer. The link to the
printer is fairly slow, even it is a parallel port (LPT) or a (somewhat faster) USB port.
(We will probably see much faster ports like Firewire for this purpose in the future.)
Finally the printer converts the received data to the final printout raster image dot
pattern. If the image data are vectorized data this is done by means of a RIP (Raster
Image Processor). The RIP contains the CPU mentioned above and normally use
some of the printer RAM for processing.
PS files consists of text and/or 100% vectorized data.
Final PS printout is most often much slower than printing to for example a PCL
printer because the printer has to convert the PS vectorized data to the desired
raster pattern using the RIP. The difference you see between PCL and PS is the
quality of the images.
When printing from Word to PDF, the computer is using the PS printer driver to
"print" to a PS printer file which is then converted by Acrobat Distiller to a PDF-file.
The PDF-file is format where text is displayed as text (or bitmaps) and bitmap
images as bitmap images, often resized.
I don't know if the PDF-format contains some of the original PS formatted
information, too. Maybe Adobe has just written a better internal printout function for
Adobe Acrobat (Reader) which makes the printout to their own PS format much
faster than the one Microsoft made from MS Word?
On 12 Nov 2003 at 9:26, eric -dot- dunn -at- ca -dot- transport -dot- bombardier -dot- com wrote:
> Regardless of how much printer RAM you install, the CPU on you desktop is
MUCH faster than any CPU installed on a printer. I have found large print jobs from
ANY application can be accomplished much faster by printing to PS file through
the distiller printer, distilling to PDF, and then printing the PDF.
RoboHelp for FrameMaker is a NEW online publishing tool for FrameMaker that
lets you easily single-source content to online Help, intranet, and Web.
The interface is designed for FrameMaker users, so there is little or no
learning curve and no macro language required! Call 800-718-4407 for
competitive pricing or download a trial at: http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l4
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
