text to pdf to email

[Fairlight]

You'll never BELIEVE what Bob Rasmussen said here...:
> 
> Do you get out in the real world much, Bill?

Considering Bill's background, I find that kind of offensive.  Of course he
does.

> Below my sig is a text report. Using Pine on Linux I attached it to the
> end of my email. How does it look? Do the linedraw characters come out
> right? Do you see the 125-column layout properly represented? Can you
> print it properly if you need to?

Does it belong in email?  Likely not.

And yes, the linedraw characters looked fine in mutt under PuTTY on Win2K
using Lucida Console.  The wrapping was present, but I could resize and use
a 125xNN terminal window if I so chose, and all would be well.  Actually, I
can change that on the fly, I believe.

> For comparison, there is also attached a PDF version of the same file.
> Take a look. I could have specified margins, of course.
> 
> Note that in this demonstration I haven't even approached:
> 
> a) pagination
> b) accented characters
> c) embedded tabs
> d) backspace bolding
> e) backspace underlining
> f) page orientation
> g) character pitch changes
> h) line overstrike
> 
> And that's just "text" printing.

Yeah, which is the -only- reason it was 6.9K PDF over 6K ASCII.  Mess with
all the other stuff, add in graphics, and you start edging into 30%+ bloat
really quickly.

> By the way, I used Print Wizard to convert this plain-text (DOS character
> set) file to a PDF. We have also recently added an automated way to
> programmatically generate a PDF and email it (running in Windows).

And Print Wizard works great for what it does.  I've seen clients using it.
The viability of PDF as a format is not (much) in question.  Its bloat may
be, but its usefulness isn't.  

What's in question is the sending of large attachments via a transport
mechanism that was never designed for this kind of thing--on a regular
basis, no less.

You know the old saying, "Guess you just had to be there?"

Well this is more like, "Guess you've just had to admin a mail server or
fifty."  (Probably higher in Bill's case.

He has valid points.  It's an abuse of the transport technology.

mark->
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