Re: lout and PDF

[Christopher Wolfe]

Jeff,
Greetings.  Here are my thoughts, FWIW.

As I understand it, the challenge of converting PDF files outside of 
lout is storage.

Here is the situation I face.  In a newspaper or magazine, images (EPS 
or PDF files) live on a separate server.  (Usually an OPI or DAM 
server.)  Images often change during the day, so it is actually bad to 
convert them ahead of time.  That would risk picking up an old version 
of the image.  Rather, I convert images at the time they are 
included/needed in a Lout document.

Converting the PDF files outside of Lout run requires me to find a 
temporary home for them on my server.  There are several negative 
consequences to this.

I'd prefer to convert them in-line.  The conversion can be piped (or 
chained) with a hook in Lout.

If it matters, pdftops is a widely available open-source program.  The 
xpdf package (which includes pdftops) runs under Windows and most Unix 
variants.  It is distributed with popular Linux variants.  Binaries are 
available at FooLabs.  If you are concerned about making xpdf a 
requirement for Lout, it could be optional (at make time), I suppose.

--Chris

Jeff Kingston wrote:
> > I made a version of lout that can include PDF files.
> > It detects PDF files by their first few bytes...
> > It uses the pdftops program from the open source xpdf package
> > http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/ to convert PDF files to temporary
> > EPS files.
> >     
>
> This is clever but it seems like a bridge too far to me.  After
> all, Lout is just one tool in a chain and these sorts of things
> can be done outside it.  What do others think?
>
>