There are several threads going on right now, and I'd like to offer some
unoffical Adobe insight into them.

PDF to HTML:
While this might be possible, it really is a pretty bad idea. PDFs are currently
created from Display Lists, whether that be PS, GDI, or QuickDraw. The display
lists are invariably drawing not in reading order, but in some other order, such
as by layering, or order of creation. While I have seen some beginning work at
inferring document structure back out of a PDF (e.g. by looking for bold and
large point sizes to identify article titles, etc), it will be guesswork at
best. As it has been pointed out earlier, it make much more sense to create HTML
from the application directly. To that end (and here comes the corporate plug)
Adobe will ship a PageMaker-to-HTML plug-in with PageMaker 6.0. Because
PageMaker knows article threading, stylesheets, etc, and can do graphical layout
on par with HTML, it is a great fit. PageMaker for the Mac will be shipping very
soon, and Windows will be next quarter. A side note: PageMaker 6.0 will also
ship with a Create PDF plug-in that will automate creating bookmarks, hot links,
and article threads. I've been testing it and it is really cool!

PDF vs Acrobat:
I believe the 'peever' is correct: PDF is the public language that Acrobat can
read and write; Acrobat is a private product of Adobe Systems. Someone else
might make a line of products called "sky diver" or "indy 500 driver" or "other
circus employee" that also parses PDF. Clarity is always appreciated.

Acrobat and Color:
Whew, this is a touchy subject. Essentially, you're dealing with a bunch of
translation problems between color spaces. The best you can do is eliminate as
much conversion as you can. You're probably going on a journey like this:
CMYK scan -> Quark display (RGB)
Quark PS (CMYK) -> Distiller (RGB or CYMK)
Exchange/Reader (RGB or CMYK) -> Display (RGB)
The situation is much worse if you use an alternate color scheme such as CIE
where Distiller can really do a number doing colorspace conversion.
Acrobat Technical Support might have some good workarounds for this one by now,
I'd check with them. One thing you can do to stay a lot closer is to do
everything in RGB: Define your colors in Quark as RGB, scan as RGB, etc. This
will have an adverse affect on printing, so you play double jepordy. CMS offers
a true solution, but alas there are no PTs (precision tranforms) for Acrobat
just now. PageMaker 6.0 will take a step in the right direction, by offering
some color management to make the problem not quite as bad (but still not
perfect). Be sure to tell Adobe at every oportunity that you want to see that
Acrobat CMS support plug-in ASAP (the viewers are ready to support it, they just
have to write a plug-in!)
Take Care,
-- Kelly --
_______________________________________________________________________________
Subject: Re: Acrobat vs. PDF
From: acrobat@blueworld.com at cc_smtp5
Date: 8/8/95 3:12 PM

> Pet peeve: I wish people would stop using Acrobat as the name of the
>file format (as in "Acrobat to HTML converter"). The name of the file
>format is PDF. PDF has an open specification and several available
>interpreters (I know of 3 personally), of which Acrobat, an Adobe
>product, is just one.

While I do understand this I do now wonder if I have suscribed to the
best list. Should this be a forum for Acrobat or should it be one about
PDF? If it remains a forum for Acrobat and we are not to be to loose
with our terms, I wonder about the commercialization of this list. Such
a situation could be used as an advertisement by Adobe, not to mention
allowing the burden of software support to be ours rather then the
responsibility of Adobe, after all support for such should be paid for
by the investment put into the software and thus Adobe.
If there is no connection between Adobe and this list other then the
software used by a percentage of those here that discuss it is sold by
Adobe, another question is raised. Is it appropriate? PDF is a
technology not owned by Adobe, Acrobat is an implementation that is.
Confusion here could hurt Adobe in the same sense that xerox has spent
millions in advertising to seperate its name from copy machines.
Well I'm sounding like a lawyer. Personally I use Acrobat but only
because of the technology in PDF and thus would rather this be a forum
about PDF.

Thomas Manderfield