Does PDF Creator identifies itself to applications as a Postscript printer or as a PDF printer?
There are a few differences in the graphics between Postscript and PDF, notably PDF supports transparent vector graphics and Postscript does not. Applications would have to rasterize graphics containing this feature if they determined the output device was Postscript, but could leave the graphic as objects for PDF output. This would make a pretty big difference in the resulting file size.
Thanks.
Hmm.
I don't have Acrobat Distiller on any of my machines but a quick look at the properties on somebody else's desktop made it look like it too is a Postscript printer. Presumably none of the PDF generators that appear as postscript printers will be able to print transparent graphics as objects to a PDF file because the application must assume the postscript limitation and rasterize. Correct?
Some applications have a separate PDF export capability, which should be able to do transparent vector graphics, but in general, and annoyingly, these have much less control over the final PDF produced than is possible through PDF Creator.
Six of one, half dozen of the other. Thanks.
Hello,
In windows, there are practically two basic printer types on windows: GDI(+) and PostScript. PDFCreator uses PostScript (starting with Vista there is also WPF). I don't think it is possible to have a direct PDF printer, but it could be possible to capture the GDI commands, but that would be a completely new application.
kind regards,
Philip