Standards for Publications.

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

I am sending you some recommendations from Fred Baes, regarding standards for 

publications. This all evolves from 2 days of E-Mails, addressing a letter to the 

newsletter editor (this will be addressed in the February Newsletter), regarding errors 

noted on HPS N13.11-2001 that is posted on the Standards Webpage, for special 

symbols contained in the Table 1. It was at first thought that Acrobat 4.0 was the 

culprit, but the real issue has to do with WordPerfect Publishing, then using various 

programs to read, at the user level. Fred makes some good recommendations. 

Please review the recommendations, and let's develop a Standard that we can 

submit to the Board for consideration. We can expand this to also include our 

recommendations for electronic presentations at Society Meetings (Note, I had sent 

each of you the Guidelines we sent out to each presenter at the upcoming Mid-Year 

Meeting). What we now need to do is take any Lessons Learned, and incorporate 

them into a formal recommendation that can be used, beginning with the Annual 

Meeting in Tampa.



As always, I look forward to your feedback.



Sandy





------- Forwarded message follows -------

Date sent:      	Wed, 09 Jan 2002 17:44:22 -0500

To:             	sandyfl@earthlink.net

From:           	Fred Baes <webmaster@www.hps.org>

Subject:        	Re: Revision Recommendation for Newsletter

Copies to:      	gnrsslr@frontiernet.net,lphps@aol.com,jack.fix@pnl.gov



Sandy,



IMHO Word would do a better job, not because of the WP-MathA font, but

because Word does a better job managing fonts in general and seems to

work better at downloading fonts to a printer (which is sort of what

happens when fonts are embedded in PDF files).  At least that's true

of WP versions 7 and less.  I now use WP 9, and it behaves better than

the older versions.



I've been making PDFs literally since Acrobat 1, and actually the

quality  of PDFs created with 3 were the best ever.  Acrobat 4 was

actually worse than 3 and I even removed 4 from my system and went

back to 3 to create my PDF files until 5 came out.  I still use 3 to

generate the file and 5 to edit it.



Neither Word nor WP are really desktop publishing programs and neither

are very good for equations.  I used to use Corel's Ventura Publisher

8, but they discontinued support and Ventura 8 will not run properly

on Windows 2000 or XP, so I'm back to Word.  I never liked PageMaker,

but Adobe makes it, and one would hope that it would optimize the

creation of  PDF files.  I have not evaluated any other desktop

publishing programs, but in the end I bet any DTP program would be

superior to Word or WP.



In the end, however, the options selected in creating the PDF file is

likely more important than the original package.



My recommendations (from bitter experience):



A. Before you start:

1. Buy and install Adobe Font Manager

2. Install and use the Adobe postscript printer driver and printer

definitions for distiller instead of the native Windows postscript

driver 3. Download and install all service packs, patches, and

upgrades to Windows, your word processor, and Acrobat.



B. In the original document:



1. Use Adobe fonts over Truetype whenever possible.

2. Use the 16 base fonts that come with Acrobat Reader if possible

over similar fonts (e.g., "Times New Roman PS" instead of "Times") 3.

Remove all unused fonts in your document (often reveal codes in WP

will reveal multiple instances where fonts are turned on and off with

no text in between) 4. Save your document using "Save As" instead of

"Save"



C. Creating the PDF

1. If you have it, use Acrobat 3 distiller.  I still prefer to use it

over 5, although 5 seems to do a good job.  Acrobat 3 will not install

on Windows 2000 or XP, however. 1. Always use Distiller, never Acrobat

Writer! 2. Set backward compatibility level to the lowest possible

(oldest).  Currently in Acrobat 5 that would be Acrobat 3.0 3. Embed

all fonts AND make sure all fonts you use in the document are

explicitlty listed in the "Always Embed" window. 4. After the PDF is

created, check to see that all fonts are embedded. 5. After the PDF is

created view on another machine if possible and advance through it

page by page. 6. After the PDF is created always fill out the Title

field in the Document Summary screen.  Search engines (like Google)

use this field to name the document in search results. 7. Pray.



Just some thoughts...

Fred





At 01:51 PM 1/9/2002 -0800, you wrote:

>Based on my observed error using the Acrobat Reader 5.0.1 version, I

>am recommending that we revise the response, and leave it open for

>further review. I say this because the Acrobat Reader 5.0 version

>isn't going to fix a problem when the PDF is derived from a

>WordPerfect Program. I don't yet know whether this would still be a

>problem is Microsoft Word were used to write the Standard, but that

>can be evaluated later.

>

>Please see my proposed revision:

>

>

>"The problems experienced by Chris Soares and David Schauer are

>unfortunate and may have been experienced by others. An initial

>evaluation of their problem, that is still underway, indicates that

>the problems have occurred because of inconsistencies among the

>software used to prepare the standard, the software on the user's

>equipment and the Acrobat software. The specific Acrobat error

>message noted by them is instructive in that it reveals that a

>problem is being encountered in managing fonts internal to the

>standard and those available on the user's equipment.  ANSI N13.11

>has many equations and symbols that must be interpreted accurately.

>Only users who also have WordPerfect installed, will see the symbols

>displayed correctly. The error is described as follows: "In

>WordPerfect, you also need to make sure that your document does not

>contain any fonts that have licensing restrictions, such as the WP

>MathA or WP Typographical Symbols fonts included with WordPerfect.

>WordPerfect may include these fonts in your document automatically.

>To make sure that your document does not contain any fonts that have

>licensing restrictions, select all of the text in the document and

>apply a font that has no licensing restrictions, and then re-create

>the PDF file. For information about licensing restrictions, see

>document 323155, "Error '...[font name] cannot be embedded due to

>licensing restrictions' in Acrobat Distiller."

>

>A solution to this problem will be described in the next newsletter,

>and if necessary, noted on the standard page.

>

>

>

>Jack Fix, CHP

>Staff Scientist

>Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

>P.O. Box 999

>6th and W Street, Bldg. 790

>Richland, WA  99352

>Phone:  509.375.2512

>FAX:      509.375.6936

>E-mail:   jack.fix@pnl.gov

>

>

>-----Original Message-----

>From: gnrsslr@frontiernet.net [mailto:gnrsslr@frontiernet.net]

>Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 10:04 AM

>To: Fix, John J; sperle@icnpharm.com; webmaster@www.hps.org

>Subject: Letter

>

>

>Jack, Sandy, and Fred,

>

>You all now have Soares etc. response to my email of this morning. I

>had hoped that they would rewrite their letter and shorten it. That

>was a self-centered hope because I am putting together pages of the

>February Newsletter and I need to have some more space.

>

>Now we seem to be back at ground zero. They want to run their letter

>as is according to my interpretation of the latest email. That

>doesn't help my space problem and it also means we may have to

>reconsider our response which I revised a little since I sent it

>yesterday. Currently it is:

>

>"The problems experienced by Drs. Soares and Schauer are unfortunate

>and no doubt have been experienced by others. An initial evaluation

>of their problem indicates that it occurred because of the use of

>older Acrobat software. The specific Acrobat error message noted by

>them is instructive in that it reveals bugs Acrobat 4 had in managing

>fonts. A simple fix to the problem is to upgrade (for free) to

>Acrobat 5.0, and such a recommendation has been posted on the

>Standards page. Our tests using Acrobat 5.0 on operating systems

>without the WordPerfect font indicates no problems in correctly

>rendering the standards.

>

>We recognize the challenges presented in creating electronic

>documents that are faithful to the original hard copies while the

>software, operating systems, Internet protocols, and user interfaces

>are constantly changing, and we strive to create electronic documents

>that will stand the test of time. Users can minimize potential

>problems by keeping their software up-to-date with the latest

>versions and/or patches, and of course, alerting us to any specific

>problems they may encounter. We appreciate the alert by Soares and

>Schauer."

>

>

>Advice???

>

>Gen

>------- End of forwarded message -------



Fred Baes

HPS Webmaster



------- End of forwarded message -------

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sandy Perle				Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   

Director, Technical			Extension 2306

ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Service	Fax:(714) 668-3149 	           

ICN Pharmaceuticals, Inc.		E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net

ICN Plaza, 3300 Hyland Avenue  	E-Mail: sperle@icnpharm.com   

Costa Mesa, CA 92626                    



Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com

ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com