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[OM] Re: Blurb for free software users? (Was: New Book)

Subject: [OM] Re: Blurb for free software users? (Was: New Book)
From: Manuel Viet <oly@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 04:16:39 +0100
Le vendredi 21 Mars 2008 21:19, Piers Hemy a écrit :
> www.lulu.com certainly does accept PDFs, and certainly is not tied to
> Windows, as far as I can tell.

Last I looked, lulu itself had no ties to windows, BUT it has at least some 
ties to adobe. In short, if you're only creating books with lulu for your own 
personal pleasure, you can produce the pdf as you see fit. On the other hand, 
if you apply for an isbn and make your book available to retail, then 
producing the pdf with acrobat (full ed) is mandatory. Or, as far as I know, 
you can make a clean postscript and lulu will happily churn it in pdf for you 
(with Acrobat). This is because most pro RIP are bogus and rely on some pdf 
behaviours that are known to be produced by acrobat, but uncertain with other 
distillers. As merely anything can stop a RIP anytime, which translate in 
HUGE costs, to setup the kit again, lulu basically forbids anything not 
bearing adobe brand. They don't care for personal prints because they use 
classic computers/printers combos for short runs, not a RIP used only for 
volume production.

This is a problem for us FOSS advocates and control freaks, because there's no 
native port of the full acrobat on linux. The closest we got is scribus, a 
very apt pdf distiller, more than likely to produce excellent quality pdfs, 
but not allowed by lulu.

-- 
Manuel Viet

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