Forum Moderators: not2easy
Most web designers I know don't use a vector design program like Illustrator or Freehand - They use Fireworks, Photoshop, GIMP, Corel draw...
The only place we see vector based design is in swf files - which is is a huge misgiving - it does not offer the same level of print support.
It's struck me, how unfortunate it is that there is not a format on the web that supports vector images for both screen and print, (isn't a PNG rendered as low res raster by a printer?)
If UA's supported EPS/PDF as images in their own right without 3rd party support. We could really start to add High Definition to the web experience.
...if your logo printed PERFECTLY every time a user clicked the print button... no pixelation, no loss... CSS @import + EPS support would unlock doors for designers wishing to cross the boundaries between screen and paper.
Given the opportunity my first choice for vector support would be EPS - surely it's compression value alone is worth considering?
For example. I can create a logo in EPS - I can scale it to any size (postage stamp or boat sail), edit it at the source when ever I want, set it to exact pantone specs, and it will NEVER lose quality - all the while it maintains a low file size - a GIF or JPEG has little of that flexibility
I think I might start a campaign to get EPS widely supported - I have compressed logos in EPS - filtered their components and arrived at almost the same file size as a GIF - OK it wasn't quite as low, but a GIF cannot support fonts/vector/colour info like that of an EPS file!
Why is EPS (or PDF) not supported within the browser?
[msdn.microsoft.com...]
I wonder if the SVG/XML is it?[msdn.microsoft.com...]
I guess it is one option but still not quite offerening the flexibility of a file like a PDF/eps
I hope that is not the only option - it is hoplessly upsupported by print design proffesionals - infact I don't know a printer that would except that format.
It would be great if there was support for a wider selection of image file types - they have all have strengths and weakenesses - there have been many times I would have liked to have placed a TIFF or EPS in place of a JPEG or GIF.
Screen and print authoring have always been seen as separate entities and I'm not sure why.
The web<>print design process would be greatly enhanced if the source files for thing like logos were the same - and would be a lot less confusing for users and business owners who dont understand the differences.
The amount of times I've been sent a company logo in a GIF format and then expected to use it for large format printing - if we all used EPS for this sort of image it would save A LOT of tooing and froing...
Maybe someone can shed some light on that, as well as how suggestions to browser/HTML standards are affected. Who make the call?
There are also many applications that support SVG (including Adobe Illustrator). Open source applications variety include the GIMP, and Inkscape.
PDF, similarly, is a format with the specific purpose of having documents display the same across platforms and in print. I don't believe it is a vector format anyway.
SVG support would be nice, but apparently the native support for SVG in some browsers behaves differently from the Adobe plugin one would use for older browsers.
There is no reason why an EPS file should be huge. It depends entirely on the content. I regularly produce logos in eps format that are small enough for web. I realise they are larger than a gif - but a gif cannot render vectors - and scalability for some web graphics would be very useful - especially /cross media.
...specific purpose of having documents display the same across platforms and in print.
Exactly - so why not use this capability to display as an image - People see PDF more like a word processed file because of their most common application... to documents. But anyone in the print industry will happily accept a PDF logo, assuming it has been created using a vector tool in the fisrt place. I (+ other print based designers) regularly use PDF's to display images within a DTP produced page - it keeps the files size low + ability to edit and scale. The same would be true of a web page
PDF's are vector + contain information about fonts and colours separation etc - it comes down to the way they are made - a page made from JPEG's that is PDF'ed will be raster - a page made from EPS's will be in vector.
Another advantage to have this sort of dexterity of images files is accessibility - screen readers can understand words in a PDF file - so that would mean that any graphic you made using a pdf containing type data would be accessible (and spiderable) too...
I guess my real point is that browsers are very limited in what files they can and cannot read - why? We support cross browser & platform and many 3rd party file formats (.swf)... consider the scope created by a wider range of building blocks, a bigger pallete for web page creators to use.
Gaining more options instaed of limiting them will open up new skills and better ways to please users and clients alike.
Adobe - if you are listening - make a browser that supports PDF as native image - and make the code Open Source so firefox/opera can adapt it... then, maybe one day, IE would follow too...
But anyone in the print industry will happily accept a PDF logoThat is because PDF is being positioned as the successor to Postscript. Any print shop nowadays accepts PDF for pre-press because it has those features built into it.
If you want to embed the PDF itself into a web page, you can already do this with <object>/<embed> tags, the same as you could for a Flash movie, a QuickTime clip, or an Excel worksheet.
I guess my real point is that browsers are very limited in what files they can and cannot read - why?Because it is the web. The web is supposed to be lightweight and platform-independent, and the more formats you want a browser to support, the heavier and more complicated it becomes. HTML, GIF and JPEG (and XBM) were around "in the beginning" and so became defaults. But consider that the very widespread TIFF was not, and today even PNG is still not correctly implemented in Internet Explorer.
Again, when the web was first conceptualized, I don't think Postscript was technologically viable for mass distribution. And I can't imagine there were many backers for making an 80s-era, print-oriented, proprietary format (especially considering the alarming Compuserve patent precedent) a core technology for new media. Neither was Adobe too sharp on the web in the beginning.
For now, Flash (and PDF) are widely deployed—not least because they were backed by industry heavyweights Macromedia and Adobe, which found religion—and useful as stopgaps. For the future, SVG is the way to go; it is an open standard and a logical companion to XHTML, MathML, and all the other XMLs. But now that Adobe has a stake in Flash, a technology widely available with a large developer base that they make a lot of money from, who will be SVG's champion before the browser developers?
