| | | What are PDF and PostScript? |
PostScript is
Adobe's page description
language. It attempts to describe in a device-independent
manner how to put text and graphics on a page. PostScript has
become a standard: most programs whose goal is to put ink on
paper are able to convert their output into PostScript format,
and many printers have built-in support for printing
PostScript files (which normally have a file extension
.ps).
Adobe's portable document format, known as PDF, is a cousin of PostScript that is optimized for display on the World-Wide Web. Although PDF is not a full-fledged programming language (PostScript is), PDF has facilities for embedded hyperlinks, interactive forms, and searching. The PDF format has become a standard on the World-Wide Web for documents that need to be displayed exactly as the author formatted them (with prescribed fonts, prescribed line breaks, prescribed spacing, and so forth).
The Math 696 course
pages were last modified April 5, 2005. | | | What are PDF and PostScript? |