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MacOS Ventura: End of support of postscript language. Does that affect Affinity suite?


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Hello out there!
As I read just in that moments, Apple has published a support document, which says, that  macOS Ventura will no longer support postscript (3) any more. If I'm right, until now postscript has been deeply connected with MacOS (since Steve Jobs intermezzo with Next computers), and a lot of easy going features (also in other softwares) where using the OS' PDF- and postscript abilities.

Question: Do you have any clues, if that decision will bother the Affinity suite and its well designed functionality?

 

Best wishes

Johannes

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It would help to have a pointer to what you read, but here's one I found: https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/10/26/apple-drops-postscript-support-in-preview-for-macos-ventura

What that says is that the Preview app won't support .ps or .eps files any more. It does not say that the OS and other apps won't support them.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
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Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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I have macOS Ventura installed and despite of lack of direct open and view support in Preview (and accordingly printing in context of first previewing these file types) the operating system itself continues to support PostScript format so e.g. legacy Type 1 fonts can still be installed and used. It is also still possible in Preview app (or any other app using the system print dialog) to save a file (PDF) as a .PS file from within the PDF dropdown list of the Print dialog box (which is an important functionality as it allows e.g. flattening of embedded fonts, including legacy Type 1 fonts). Based on a quick look, third party PS interpreter Ghostscript also seems to continue operating on macOS Ventura similarly as it did on Monterey.

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Hello collegues,

I read that information in that (German) article. It refers to that support document from Apple.

Since I ran macOS Mojave (which I regard to be *very* stable and smooth) the QuickLook-Plugin (view a document via pressing spacebar) for .eps files doesn't work any more and does not work any more ever since there had been a system/security update. No preview, also in "open" dialogues while placing .eps-files in Affinity. Several times I had therefore to refer to an article in the internet how to "hack" and add some (xml-)code to the QuickLook "Illustrator.qlgenerator" plugin in order to bypass that quirk.

Now I understand, that these had been the "shadows macOS Ventura was casting" ...

I am not very skilled with the "hard core technique" of MacOS. But always I had the impression, that a lot of cool functions in finder, preview.app and in (evenmore in favorable) softwares refer to the fact, that – unlike Windows – MacOS has a lot of .ps and PDF technology under the hood. If I remember right, "long time ago" Apple and Adobe had been pulling in the same direction. There was collaboration. Back then there had been spoken of "display postscript", the invention of tranparency and absolut cool animations in the OS finder (funnel animation while taking off folders or windows into the doc!)

I'm a little concerned about the "end of postscript" in macOS affectin the success e.g. Affinity.

Johannes

 

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3 hours ago, jweitzel said:

Since I ran macOS Mojave (which I regard to be *very* stable and smooth) the QuickLook-Plugin (view a document via pressing spacebar) for .eps files doesn't work any more and does not work any more

I'm also on Mojave (the best OS a Mac could have), and I can use the spacebar trick in the Finder to see EPS files. Both very old, or made yesterday with Designer.

This is still a very important feature, since EPS is still a file format many use in the print world, and of which there are still huge collections. Some online library even continue to offer images in this file format.

Removing it would be another step away from what we knew as the professional world, going toward a direction I'm too old to understand. I think I'll discuss this with some artificial intelligence, sooner or later…

Paolo

 

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Hello Paolo,
thanks for your answer! I have to apologize for writing something wrong: It's not Mojave (although I'm too tried to stay there as long as possible), but it is Monterey! In Monterey there is no .eps-view by default. And orginally the fanbase assumed, it's a bug, which will be fixed with the next version. But now we've learned, is was a (abandoned) feature?
The rest of the situation described stays the same ...

Johannes

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I am not an expert in this field, but I think that PostScript continues to be a kind of a fundamental method of handling data to be transferred in high fidelity from one device and platform to another, even if the (now) legacy PostScript based .EPS (standard up to 3.0 and non Adobe and .AI content including) and .PS formats are deprecated. I do not think that it is going to be faded out from print industry, or internals of any OS (in context of native API, e.g. DisplayPostScript in macOS supported frameworks, or PostScript support in Windows GDI; or support of Type 1 PostScript fonts; even if support of the PostScript format in UI will continue to be globally faded out).

PDF, a standard that is non-proprietrary even if fundamentally PostScript based, has superseded EPS and PS as encapsulated read-only data exchange format (meaning that complex data can be transferred between apps or from one platform to another whenever editing is not required), and which also allows higher level of features that retain editability between apps and platforms. I suppose Adobe apps will continue to "blur" the standard by allowing inclusion of e.g. AI native data both within EPS (aka Illustrator EPS) and PDF files, and AI files (making them shareable by allowing inclusion of PDF streams), making these formats full-fledged editable data exchange formats, but basically only within Adobe apps -- why would not they continue to do so? I suppose that the competition is free to try to do the same (that is, including native formats within PDF and EPS formats), but no one has actually tried to do so.

I would not be concerned about loss of "co-operation" between Apple and Adobe. Deprecating plain standard EPS (or .PS), or PostScript Type 1, Adobe innovations, is by no means a thing that works against Adobe (or Apple): this kind of development (and labelling still fully working technologies as "legacy" or "obsolete", and dropping support for them, as this is exactly what happened now in context of Preview: fading out a standard and implying that the format continues to be supported in third party apps, and most extensively in apps provided by a certain non-mentioned company) serves well both companies ;-) 

UPDATE: Actually I think that there is a chance that apps like Affinity or VectorStyler can gain something by continuing support of legacy technologies (and even further developing the level of support). No one denies benefits of e.g. PDF or OTF over EPS and Type 1, or deficiencies in old technologies, but it may still be a good idea to continue supporting legacy technologies off the support of the operating system.   

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Many thanks for your response! which I cannot understand in all aspects exactly, since it is somewhat syntactically and semantically complicated. ;-)

I've decided not to use the words of the company A... anymore, be it .ai formats etc. I still think A... is a monopolist, what is illustrated exactly by the technology of .ps , .eps, Type 1 etc. The whole community is dependent on these. The fact that there is still no affordable alternative to the PDF editor "Acrobat" speaks a lot. The IT department of our big company used to laugh at me because they could offer "very good" printers for $600 or $800, while I had to pay an additional $1000 for printers with "original A... Postscript" right away. Most professional PDF editors are so expensive, because of lizenses to be paid to A...
That Affinity doesn't support T1 fonts right from the start may be, because Apple announced, that it would remove .ps/T1 support from the operating system in near future?

Back to topic: My questions/concerns relate to the fact that with the sending of .eps and .ps to the nursing home, large and small software companies can no longer rely on OS routines and are therefore "outside" of business – or have great difficulties to develop complicated functions (color management, writing prepress conform PDF etc.). I think it's a little arrogant to stand up and say "PDF and .ps are open source systems, anyone can try them".
What does the discontinuation of Postscript and T1 in the Apple macOS 13 mean for Serif and the further development of the Affinity Suit?

Greeting from Johannes

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On 10/28/2022 at 8:34 AM, jweitzel said:

I read that information in that (German) article. It refers to that support document from Apple.

1 hour ago, jweitzel said:

What does the discontinuation of Postscript and T1 in the Apple macOS 13 mean for Serif and the further development of the Affinity Suit?

As far I read both your linked articles they do not announce a general "discontinuation of Postscript" in macOS but rather describe modifications for the workflow when handling Postscript with the Apple Preview.app only, initiated by possible security issues in postscript.

Concerning Type 1 postscript fonts it might be a different issue since fonts in general require handling separate from a page description language or script like postscript or html. As far I understand those fonts will lose support not because of being postscript but in their lack of OpenType features. Adobe had announced their "end" already several years ago (at least 2020) in this articles, which seem to get updated from time to time with a new "final" date:
https://helpx.adobe.com/fonts/kb/postscript-type-1-fonts-end-of-support.html
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/announcement-end-of-support-postscript-type-1-fonts.html

Concerning your issues with QuickLook in Monterey – (you can edit your post to correct the current "Mojave" via the "…" menu at the upper right corner at that post) – it appears for Montery various issues with Quicklook had been reported (not with .eps only) that required a certain reset. Furthermore the following post recommends a linked eps viewing application that is mentioned to auto-install an eps quicklook file which will enable Quicklook for eps without the need to use this app once more:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/quick-look-plugin-for-eps-files.2322624/post-31069979

I might be wrong but currently I don't see a reason to assume that Serif would stop general Postscript support in next Affinity version(s), e.g. by no longer opening / editing / exporting .EPS or .PDF files. – Concerning Type 1 fonts there was this comment in 2020 and that in 2021, not really indicating an end of Type 1 in Affinity, let alone a date:

909181386_PostscriptType1fontsupportAffinity.jpg.dbdd905261c2db0415324de760d338a9.jpg

1093999140_Bildschirmfoto2022-10-29um20_57_58.jpg.783579244cda91f07ee4e740e0e6a8cb.jpg

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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16 hours ago, jweitzel said:

Most professional PDF editors are so expensive, because of lizenses to be paid to A..

Adobe has certainly made good money on PostScript licenses within print industry, but PDF has been for a long time an open standard, and even PostScript and EPS, while still Adobe owned proprietary formats, are fully documented and as such available for other developers. The deprecation of latter two as file format is is a long-time process, as is deprecation of Type 1 fonts. More modern and advanced and secure formats have superseded them, and as mentioned, there are still apps that continue to support these formats as something that can be used to create new content, after Adobe and many OSs fade out direct support of these technologies (their support continues as embedded formats and within print industry).

On Windows there is a free and for access of full features of the app very affordable PDF editor called PDF/X-Change that does much of what Adobe Acrobat Pro does. But it is not a prepress tool. There are at least two such tools, pdfToolbox, which is also an editor, by callas software (a bit pricier than Adobe Acrobat Pro 2020 with a perpetual license) -- a company that as far as I know has developed much or the prepress routines of Adobe Acrobat Pro / DC and which Adobe has licensed from them; and a free app for both Windows and macOS called PACKZVIEW, which however is not freely distributed but limited to professional use (and primarily within package industry) -- but which is not an editor but useful in checking press related specs. There are probably about a hundred or so other apps that can be considered as PDF editors, some of which are completely free, which is a kind of a proof that anyone is free to try to create an Adobe Acrobat killing PDF editor. But it is obviously not an easy task.

I can well understand criticism against Adobe and frustration related to their pricing model, but it is good to remember that the reason why their legacy software is not useable any longer for many who are in creative business is not because of Adobe but because of Apple. Adobe still supports CS6 on Windows in a way that installation count of the apps within the suite is reset on request so that these over a decade old apps can be installed on e.g. Windows 11 computers where they operate practically without any issues. I do not know many companies that do something similar, or software which is as robust (not depending on obsolete and deprecated technologies or frameworks but are developed on native OS API and therefore durable). Competition is certainly welcome and I hope there are ways to prevent monopolist schemes so that we continue to have alternatives. But the competition needs do be very good -- and possibly be based on open source. In practice I think we are pretty close to a situation where the basic tools are free or very low-cost but (additional) services are charged.

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This is the current situation with Adobe Type 1 fonts:

On Windows they continue to be fully supported in all legacy Adobe apps, including current CC apps excluding Photoshop (since version 22), but losing support in January 2023 in other CC suite apps, too, meaning that any document opened in up-to-date CC suite apps for editing and using Type 1 fonts (installed on the system) will not have the used fonts recognized and will be rendered using a fallback font. Earlier CC versions continue supporting Type 1 fonts and it does not seem that Adobe forces uninstallation of earlier CC versions when installing later ones so they can exists side by side (but old versions cannot typically be re-installed from within CC dashboard).

Type 1 fonts will most probably continue to be fully supported in QuarkXPress, Xara Designer Pro and in all other apps that can be considered as page layout apps of sort (e.g. CorelDRAW). But PostScript and Type 1 are no longer supported e.g. in Microsoft Office apps (have not been for some years now). Type 1 fonts continue to be supported more or less fully also in Affinity apps but there are issues especially with encoding of symbol fonts, meaning that glyphs of some fonts cannot be properly accessed, or that some fonts cannot be properly embedded and exported.

On macOS Type 1 fonts continue to be supported to some extent in most apps (not in Microsoft Office, though), but very few can e.g. use type metrics correctly (automatic kerning e.g. Is not supported in Pages or or in Affinity apps).

Decreasing support for Type 1 fonts and PostScript and EPS format goes to certain extent hand in hand. At least officially Microsoft removed support of PostScript and EPS formats, and at the same time also Type 1, based on security issues that can be involved in PostScript (which, including fonts, are basically kinds of programs). 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hello Lacerto,

many thanks for your resumées and your conclusions! At least one is informed by that about the consequences in near future. And these are not so welcome.
I hope, that I am not totally wrong and particularly I do not want to offend you: But from time to time, your contributions "smell" for me as if you are an Adobe Ambassador and monitor in the Affinity forum ...
I personally of the strong opinion, that the type 1 fonts had been/or are to be "killed" intentionally – in order to "reset" the whole typographical scene and software world. Because of my age (≥ 65) I have been with the development of fonts from the very beginning on. And I have to admit, that in ≥ 2015 the flood and the bootleg of fonts where overwhelming. So it was high time, (besides of the [not so] concurrent type vendors Linotype, Adobe, Berthold, Apple, Microsoft) to reset the whole thing by introducing a new technology incompatible with all, what had been installed before. Now we are all to re-buy the fonts, we need *really*.

 

Best wishes!
Johannes

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1 hour ago, jweitzel said:

I personally of the strong opinion, that the type 1 fonts had been/or are to be "killed" intentionally – in order to "reset" the whole typographical scene and software world.

... which, unfortunately, in turn is in order to reduce the need of software development for an increasing number of existing hardware respectively operating system versions. I agree, theoretically it could be able and welcome to develop and deliver all software (e.g. font files and their support) for all ever developed configuration – but on the other hand it would increase costs massively and thus people may rather prefer reduced compatibility over time.

Worse than the cost aspect for font files might be that for the hardware, which becomes obsolete faster than definite hardware defects occur due to software incompatibilities ... leading to faster rising ecological costs globally ... leaving functional but useless hardware.

1 hour ago, jweitzel said:

an Adobe Ambassador

As long as this company can be seen as a kind of pioneer for various aspects of DTP, and – additionally ! – is often simply more reliable than Affinity in certain aspects (e.g. colour handling), comparisons or quotes may seem unavoidable, for instance to give Serif clues as to how users might expect a certain feature or what technical solutions might be. So any arguing as "ambassador" essentially refers only to technology.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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You are welcome! The first part of your reply I do not understand in every aspect. But that doesn't matter (you need not telling the same in other, much more words...).
As I started with DTP in my publishing company, may be 20 years ago, we invested for that start about $ 10.tsd. only for fonts! And until the very newest time we legalized every font we used with a lot of money. Over the time, this had been a good amount of money. At least in Germany, fonts had been fiscally seen as part for the property accounting like wrenches for a car repair shop.

This picture leads me to the phantasy, "what about changing the norm for all screws used in mechanics? And by that – hurrah! – forcing all car repair shops and all companies to buy new wrenches? And for me this is exactly the case with fonts.

Affinity with it's suite is in the children's shoes (but just very good and promising ones!). Indesign 2 by Adobe had been much more worse. And over time Adobe got arrogant and user-disrespectful, like Quark just before they went down the slope. I'm confident and really hope , that Serif will make its path.

Johannes

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8 minutes ago, jweitzel said:

As I started with DTP in my publishing company, may be 20 years ago, we invested for that start about $ 10.tsd. only for fonts!

When DTP started about 40 years ago, all related items were massively more expensive than in later years. Development became more effective through increased investment, financed by increased demand + sales. Like your writings, my first Mac, which I bought used ~1990 for 10,000 DM, has shrunk in value to well under 1% today, a loss of 99% – even though it still works! What reason would a software company have to develop software for this device? And what would be the price if they did?

The screw followed the rivet, the heatable car seat followed the horse saddle, the lead letter followed the wood, the digital followed the photoset, ... ASCI ... and some day OpenType was invented. At what stage do you want development to stop?

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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3 hours ago, jweitzel said:

I hope, that I am not totally wrong and particularly I do not want to offend you: But from time to time, your contributions "smell" for me as if you are an Adobe Ambassador and monitor in the Affinity forum ...

I can understand that it might seem that way at times. I do respect Adobe as a company and value their input in this industry, and we continue to use their software in our daily work (mostly based on perpetual licenses) -- and this no doubt shows in my posts. I certainly also respect Serif as a company and appreciate what they do, and hope them to become a true competitor in this business.

Many Affinity users have background as users of Adobe software and expect Affinity apps to behave similarly; I pretty much focus on helping these users by explaining what is different (or missing), and show work arounds; there might be criticism and frustration involved at times, but basically I am spending time on this forum to educate myself (and in the context of kind of journaling this process, also other users with similar interests and background) to be able to use Affinity tools more effectively, but more generally, to learn more about this business (which keeps on changing all the time).

I do not seek an exclusive alternative to Adobe, as I do not believe in exclusivity. We have always used software by multiple companies and on multiple platforms.

But perhaps it has become time to move on; the next step (for me) seems to be in learning to combine template based cloud services (primarily targeted to general public) as part of professional workflows and learn to use their vast resources and customizability effectively, combining them with traditional tools, whether installed on desktops, devices or operating web based. Much new things to learn about, again.

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11 hours ago, jweitzel said:

I personally of the strong opinion, that the type 1 fonts had been/or are to be "killed" intentionally – in order to "reset" the whole typographical scene and software world. Because of my age (≥ 65) I have been with the development of fonts from the very beginning on. And I have to admit, that in ≥ 2015 the flood and the bootleg of fonts where overwhelming. So it was high time, (besides of the [not so] concurrent type vendors Linotype, Adobe, Berthold, Apple, Microsoft) to reset the whole thing by introducing a new technology incompatible with all, what had been installed before. Now we are all to re-buy the fonts, we need *really*.

Now?
Adobe converted their fonts to OpenType over 20 years ago.
So this 20-year conspiracy is finally being executed - a big surprise to everyone.

After all it was that earlier PostScript conspiracy which killed my HP LaserJet font cartridges - which were quite expensive.

And before that, all of our expensive IBM Selectric type balls were made obsolete by that nasty Wang word processor conspiracy.

And how the rub-on character industry was wiped-out is clearly a conspiracy.

Hopefully this antiquated, severely limited, hamstrung, Type 1 nightmare will finally end.
And we will never have to hear about it again.

The advantages of OpenType fonts over Type 1 fonts are huge.
It is like comparing a 2-barrel carburetor to computer controlled fuel injection.
There was no fuel-injection conspiracy - it simply works better.
OpenType simply works a lot better.

 

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  • 10 months later...

I would like to bring up this old thread again to point out that the Postscript page description language is finally history at operating system level with the release of MacOS Sonoma. In this article in German, security reasons are – once again – mentioned. So it will no longer be possible, for example, to "clean" an output or reduce its size in a very targeted manner, to write a .ps and then convert it into a PDF according to different "rules of art".

I'm hearing some "swashbucklers" again who harshly say that .ps is an outdated technology. However, those who have learned to work with .ps and optimize or even save files will have a feeling of helplessness. Here, too, proven and mature technologies are being “killed” without replacement – to the detriment of the experts.

I don't yet have an overview of how our Affinity Suite copes with MacOS Sonoma. How stable and proven the applications work. (I read some not so good things...) As a professional, I cannot afford to suddenly find myself without a functioning production platform.

Best wishes from

Johannes

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4 hours ago, jweitzel said:

feeling of helplessness. (…) As a professional, I cannot afford to suddenly find myself without a functioning production platform.

While, yes, disrupting a familiar, well-rehearsed technology has always been demanding, time-consuming and costly, it seems that in this case it is not the platform (Mac) per se, but "only" the operating system that has made this change, whereas software running on this platform may continue with options for handling Postscript:

"This leaves those still wishing to convert PostScript files with a choice between Adobe’s Distiller in its paid-for Acrobat products, and Artifex’s Ghostscript, which has had its own share of vulnerabilities. There is also a third option, of running a late version of macOS Monterey in a lightweight VM and continuing to use PSNormalizer through Preview there. For most, that will be the cheapest and simplest option."  https://eclecticlight.co/2023/09/25/postscripts-sudden-death-in-sonoma/

Below this article a user points out:

>> BTW, an easy way to get Ghostscript is with MacTeX 2023:  https://tug.org/mactex/mactex-download.html
"[…] MacTeX installs Ghostscript, an open source version of Postscript. An optional package installs libgs, the dynamical library for Ghostscript. That library is used by only one program in TeX Live, dvisvgm. So it is not installed by default, but can be obtained using the “custom install” option in MacTeX. […]" <<

… and another user adds:

"If it’s at all helpful, there is a free online pdf converter that supports a few dozen file formats, including PS: ToPdf.com"
https://www.freeconvert.com/ps-to-pdf

So, for Affinity a relevant question could be if it relies on Apple's PSNormalizer or Quartz (Core Graphics) to render (E)PS ... on the Mac platform. Unless open/import/export file format options in v2.2. haven't changed for Sonoma users, Affinity appears to be not affected.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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Quote

Verwende eine App, die PostScript- und Encapsulated PostScript-Dateien unterstützt.

 

Die Vorschau-App, die mit deinem Mac geliefert wird, unterstützt PostScript-Dateien (.ps) und Encapsulated PostScript-Dateien (.eps) in macOS Monterey oder älter. Ab macOS Ventura werden diese Dateien von der Vorschau nicht mehr unterstützt. Andere Apps, die .ps- und .eps-Dateien anzeigen oder konvertieren können, sind im App Store und anderswo erhältlich.

Du kannst weiterhin .ps- und .eps-Dateien drucken, indem du sie in die Drucker-Warteliste ziehst. Gehe wie folgt vor, um dies in macOS Ventura oder neuer vorzunehmen:

  1. Wähle das Apple-Menü () > "Systemeinstellungen", und klicke dann in der Seitenleiste auf "Drucker & Scanner".
  2. Klicke rechts auf den Namen deines Druckers.
  3. Klicke auf die Taste "Drucker-Warteliste", um das Fenster "Drucker-Warteliste" zu öffnen.
  4. Ziehe die .ps- oder .eps-Datei in das Fenster "Drucker-Warteliste".
 

 

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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Currently I do not see reports in the forum about issues with PS / EPS in Affinity within Sonoma. – So just in case, FWIW …

"How to convert PostScript and EPS files in Sonoma in a Virtual Machine (Apple silicon)"

https://eclecticlight.co/2023/09/27/how-to-convert-postscript-and-eps-files-in-sonoma-in-a-vm-apple-silicon/

It seems worthwhile to read the comments as well to avoid problems with the VM installation, for instance:

"It’s worth pointing out for others reading this that IPSW files should only ever be downloaded from Apple. Mr. Macintosh uses links he maintains for those, and I presume that ipsw.me does the same. Never never download an IPSW from any other source, as it could render your Apple silicon Mac useless or worse."

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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Thank you very much for your answers!

In my opinion however, they sometimes miss the point, because it's not just a matter of creating .ps files and distilling them in any manner. You can get by without it.

As I wrote, the combination of .ps file and Distiller gives you tools, for example to try to clean up files from any application, that cannot be printed, or to investigate the cause. Even PDFs that "bitch" on the imagesetter or printer can be transferred back to .ps and converted into PDF again using defined distiller settings. Finally, the example that in my last company we had a whole bunch of catalogs of different thicknesses and rich illustrations. The print PDFs were about 1.4 gigabytes in size. Then the final step is to turn those catalogues  into a PDF, optimized for the website, which users can still download: between 7 and 14 megabytes. Something like this can only be done - with relatively optimal image quality or smoothness of the gradients - in a combination of .ps file and Distiller: I had a set of around 8 Distiller settings, which reduced the dpi number of the images in the file more and more (but not bitmaps, which Affinity can no longer process at all, for example!) until the maximum size of 14 MB was fallen below. Something like that may be setup within AfPub export dialogue...

Finally, it has to be said that for my experience only Adobe products can write a "clean" Postscript (because they invented it, har, har); everything else are clones that are more or less lucky. I'm very unsure whether I would use GhostScript, for example, to write a catalog file that will then cost € 35,000 to print – or have an error on the Heidelberger.

Johannes

 

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19 minutes ago, jweitzel said:

Even PDFs that "bitch" on the imagesetter or printer can  ...

... sometimes not be printed correctly under Sonoma ...

 

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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