Sudoku PDF Printer Showdown

[chasd]

 From someone that has used Acrobat ( no, I don't mean Reader ) since  
version 2.1 -

> *The Mission*:
>
> • Print Multiple Sudoku puzzles as PDF files
>     ∘ 10 puzzles with 2 per page
> • View them anywhere
> • Edit them

> *Tools used*:
>
> • gnome-games.i386 1:2.22.1.1-5.fc9
> • cups-pdf.i386 2.4.7-1.fc9
> • cairo.i386 1.6.4-1.fc9
> • evince.i386 2.22.1.1-1.fc9
> • AdobeReader_enu.i486 8.1.2-1
> • inkscape.i386 0.46-2.fc9
> • selinux-policy.noarch 3.3.1-55.fc9 (this will make sense later)

 From your tools list, it would be better to create them with  
InkScape to begin with, and bypass PDF.
A PDF is not considered an editable format, even though there are  
tools that allow it.
Editing PDFs gets messy quickly.

> *Results*:
>
> Printing with Cups ("Cups-PDF"):
> • Prints successfully
>     ∘ good print format options
>     ∘ just dumps it on the desktop with some default name
>     ∘ cups-pdf setroubleshooter unhappiness

This is configurable in /etc/cups/cups-pdf.conf
There are several options there which could solve the issues of where  
the file is written, the user that writes it ( not sure about  
context ), and the filename.

> • Imports incorrectly in Inkscape

InkScape just got PDF editing support, it isn't going to be as good  
as Adobe Acrobat.

> • multiple of binary streams when viewed in text editor

A valid PDF can be binary encoded. You may not want that, but it is  
valid to the specs.
Also note that a valid PDF can have edits appended to the end of the  
file that over-ride something in the body, and there is a checksum  
involved so a parser knows it got all the data, you can't just "cat  
foo >> bar.pdf" and have it work. A PDF may look like a simple ASCII- 
based format ( sometimes anyway ), but it much more complicated than  
that.

> Printing with Ideal Fictional Dream PDF Printer:

Print to SVG or the PDF-Mars format instead.
<http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/mars/>
Mars uses XML as the file format for PDF instead of the traditional  
PDF gorp. The Mars file format uses the "zip-it-up" ODT format, and  
has everything described as XML referencing each page as an SVG.  
Although there are few Mars tools available right now ;)


Charles Dostale
System Admin - Silver Oaks Communications
http://www.silveroaks.com/
824 17th Street, Moline  IL  61265