From owner-celegans@net.bio.net Tue Aug 02 23:00:00 1994
Newsgroups: bionet.celegans
Path: biosci!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!news.uta.edu!eatworms.swmed.edu!leon
From: leon@eatworms.swmed.edu (Leon Avery)
Subject: Re: electronic wbg
Message-ID: <1994Aug3.175035.21876@news.uta.edu>
Sender: news@news.uta.edu (USENET News System)
Nntp-Posting-Host: eatworms.swmed.edu
Organization: University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
References:  <9408031644.AA24728@darwin.mbb.sfu.ca.mbb.sfu.ca>
Date: Wed, 3 Aug 1994 17:50:35 GMT
Lines: 30

In article <9408031644.AA24728@darwin.mbb.sfu.ca.mbb.sfu.ca>, dbaillie@DARWIN.MBB.SFU.CA (David L. Baillie) writes:
|> I must be missing something in this thread, why can't the WBG be posted
|> in postscript format.  Most net users are used to recovering PS documents
|> and getting them printed out by one means or another.
|> 
|> dave baillie, sfu

Yes, that was actually my first idea.  I decided against it for two
reasons.  First, it's not an editable format.  You can't extract the
text from a postscript document to paste into another, for instance.
(At least you can't do it easily, and without knowing something about
how postscript works.)  That eliminates one of the reasons for an
electronic Gazette.

Second, it doesn't transfer reliably from machine to machine.  The
Postscript files saved from many Mac programs, for instance, won't
print on other systems because they depend on proprietary setup code
sent to the printer by the Mac Operating System.  Some
printers/viewers insist that documents follow the DSC, many word
processors produce output that doesn't.  Some word processors claim to
produce postscript that follows the DSC, which printers/viewers won't
print because they claim it doesn't.  Some people can only handle
encapsulated postscript; some word processors won't write it.  

-- 
Leon Avery					   (214) 648-2420 (office)
Department of Biochemistry			            -2768 (lab)
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center             -8856 (fax)
5323 Harry Hines Blvd				   leon@eatworms.swmed.edu
Dallas, TX  75235-9038

.