Re: [xep-support] Vector graphics, recommendations?

From: Nikolai Grigoriev (grig@renderx.com)
Date: Tue Nov 05 2002 - 06:34:23 PST


Hi Gustaf,

> I'll be finishing a book soon with plenty of illustrations made in Adobe
> Illustrator 10. I hope to be able to use XEP. I've read XEP 3 would only
> take vector graphics in EPS, which means I need to use the PS backend.
> Since the book is about XML matters, it would make sence to have the
images
> in SVG. Is SVG coming back to XEP soon?

We are reimplementing it from scratch; it takes longer than we initially
expected. It will be there; but it's a matter of months, not weeks.

> In general, what do you think about SVG for printing? Perhaps SVG is more
> suitable for web graphics and not for printing? I'm fairly new to the
Adobe
> world of publishing, so I don't know what to expect from EPS either.

Personally, I believe that EPS is absolutely the best format for printing
industry. Internally, it's an almost unrestricted PostScript (only few
special
features, mostly dealing with job control, are omitted). It can use
PostScript fonts, color models (Grayscale/RGB/CMYK), and all other
advanced features. It is also easy to produce - the same code is sent
to a PostScript device when printing your image, and in most cases,
capturing printer output to a file (plus a couple of flags checked in
the printer driver) lets you produce EPS from virtually any application.

We are currently finishing an option to insert PDF images into PDF
output, just like EPS is included in PostScript. However, it has no
special advantages over EPS: both formats being Adobe's, they have
identical expressive power and the same set of features

> Are there other vector graphic formats considered for XEP in the future?

We are pondering the possibility to support CGM (WebCGM and/or ATA
profile). No other image formats have been mentioned so far by our clients.
Do you have any suggestion? (Note that we can only support open formats;
so proprietary stuff like AI or CDR are out of consideration despite their
popularity).

Regards,
Nikolai Grigoriev
RenderX

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