The following header lines retained to affect attribution:
|Date:         Mon, 14 Dec 1998 16:55:25 +0100
|Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
|From: Hans Aberg <[log in to unmask]>
|Subject:      Re: portable LaTeX
|To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L

        ...

|At 08:54 -0600 1998/12/14, Randolph J. Herber wrote:
|>If one remains with the almost universal Apple LaserWriter basic 13 fonts
|>and the TeX bitmapped fonts, then the files are more portable than when
|>Adobe PDF is used.

|I do not think one is required to include the fonts in PDF; at XXX, one can
|even choose what fonts one wants to use (Mac PS CM or regular CM).

        Beyond the ``Apple LaserWriter basic 13 fonts'', PDF does include
        bitmapped fonts and characters at the sizes actually used and for
        the characters actually used the fonts used by the file.  This is
        because there is no way of predicting what fonts are available when
        viewed at the remote location.

|>An Adobe PDF can not be repaired readily with the
|>usual UNIX command line tools; most Adobe PostScript files can be repaired
|>by such means..

|I think there is a binary PS, too, which would be as difficult to repair as
|any other binary format...

        No, the Adobe PostScript Language Reference Manual in both the
        first and second edition state that ``the standard character set
        for ASCII-encoded PostScript language programs is the printable
        subset of the ASCII character set, plus the characters space, tab,
        and newline (return or line-feed).''  There are binary forms for
        PostScript language level 2 and for Display 2 called binary token
        and binary object sequences.  The second edition APLRM onserves
        that these should be used when space or communications bandwidth
        (if 8-bit safe) conservation are the most important considerations.

|At 08:57 -0600 1998/12/14, Randolph J. Herber wrote:
|>|...my .tex files compile into PDF, thanks...

|>Address that problem by using dvips and then ps2pdf, or dvipdf, if it exists.

|This does not work with embedded links.

        Why would not it work?  I used `dvipdf' as a generic name for a
        hypothetical dvto-to-pdf converter is the same sense that a dvips
        program exists for conversion of dvi to Adobe PostScript files.

        After doing that conversion, the result PDF files could be used
        in the HTML.  The multiple stages could be managed in a CGI script.

|Clearly the disadvantage with PDF is that it is a commercial product, and
|that it is somewhat too primitive to be used as a WWW-bytecode standard.

        In my opinion, it is too primitive with very little utility (period).

|  Hans Aberg
|                  * Email: Hans Aberg <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
|                  * Home Page: <http://www.matematik.su.se/~haberg/>
|                  * AMS member listing: <http://www.ams.org/cml/>

Randolph J. Herber, [log in to unmask], +1 630 840 2966, CD/CDFTF PK-149F,
Mail Stop 318, Fermilab, Kirk & Pine Rds., PO Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510-0500,
USA.  (Speaking for myself and not for US, US DOE, FNAL nor URA.)  (Product,
trade, or service marks herein belong to their respective owners.)