wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM (08/25/90)
> One 'reasonably' portable way to distribute the Basis document, ... > is to print it to disk with a PostScript printer driver. Unfortunately, this has a high probability of eliminating one of the major attributes that people are looking for in an electronic format, which is the ability to electronically search the document. The problem is that the PostScript drivers in many word processors can generate PostScript that looks like: ( T) 1234 S ( h) 1240 S ( i) 1248 S ( s) 1255 S for the word "This". They do it because the word processor wants complete control over the "kerning" (spacing between characters), so it places the characters individually on the page. Remember, the primary goal of the electronic format is not to be able to print the document, because it is almost certainly will cost you more than $10 to print the document yourself, not even counting how much it costs to download the document. Copying in volume is cheaper per page than printing. Mitch