[XeTeX] PS output?

[Pablo Rodríguez]

Jonathan Kew wrote:
> On 11 Apr 2007, at 4:45 pm, Pablo Rodríguez wrote:
> 
>> Hi there,
>>
>> I guess the answer is no,
> 
> You guess correctly.
> 
>> but would it be possible to have PostScript
>> output when processing a XeLaTeX source without having to convert it
>> from PDF? I mean, is it possible to have a PostScript file from xetex
>> directly?
> 
> No. This would require extending dvips (or something similar) to  
> handle xetex's "extended dvi" output, along with the necessary font  
> management, etc. It seems to me that if you need PostScript, you  
> should be able to generate it from PDF without too much difficulty,  
> so creating an additional driver does not seem a high priority. I'd  
> prefer to put the effort into improving xetex itself and xdvipdfmx.
> 
> Of course, anyone who wishes to have such a driver is welcome to work  
> on it.... :)

Thanks, Jonathan, for the answer.

PDF output is fine for me, but POD services I have to use require PDF
files generated exclusively by Acrobat Distiller, PDF version 1.5.
Otherwise the customer should assume all risks if the final document is
wrong printed (lost kernings, problems with images and fonts).

The problem is that they have problems to print documents generated with
the PDF library that comes with InDesign. Their PDF interpreter may be
wrong, but it won't be fixed, since they think the real standard is
Distiller and not the PDF specification released by Adobe (crazy... )

And for some strange reason, PostScript to PDF conversion using
Distiller is fine, but PDF to PostScript and back to PDF using Distiller
 may be wrong. The issue here is not whether the document will be
printed fine (this can be seen only after all work is done), but who
will pay for it.

I hope I will find a way to generate PS output using pdftops (but I'm
not getting it right now).

Thanks,


Pablo