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CHAPTER 2                                                                       Overview




          Macintosh application                           Windows application




               QuickDraw/                                         GDI
              CoreGraphics




                                      Adobe PDF
                                       printer



                                        PDF



                                       Acrobat




              FIGURE 2.1 Creating PDF files using the Adobe PDF printer


Instead of describing their printable output through API calls, some applications
produce PostScript page descriptions directly—either because of limitations in
the QuickDraw or GDI imaging models or because the applications run on plat-
forms such as DOS or UNIX®, where no system-level printer driver exists. Post-
Script files generated by such applications can be converted to PDF files using the
Acrobat Distiller® application (see Figure 2.2). Because PostScript and PDF share
the same Adobe imaging model, Distiller can preserve the exact graphical con-
tent of the PostScript file in the translation to PDF. Additionally, Distiller sup-
ports a PostScript language extension, called pdfmark, that allows the producing
application to embed instructions in the PostScript file for creating hypertext
links, logical structure, and other interactive and document interchange features
of PDF. Again, the resulting PDF file can be viewed with a viewer application,
such as Acrobat, on any supported platform.

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