[PDF] Distiller vs. Ghostscript for network PDF creation solution

[Kevin Hammond]

Hello all,   I apologize if this information is already in the archives.  I spent a few minutes searching the archives, but I couldn’t narrow down the search enough to get any relevant posts.   We are looking to deploy a network based PDF creation solution.  We believe that a server based solution will simplify our desktop maintenance.  The idea is to create a postscript printer and redirect the printing to a network folder (distiller) or ghostscript.   Some of our goals are to overcome installing special fonts on all computers that must create pdf’s and to tweak and maintain local distiller settings on each workstation.   The theory is that we can install Acrobat on a server and use its “watched folders” option to capture incoming postscript files and convert them to pdf’s using its local fonts and centralized pdf settings.  We may use redmon along with the Adobe postscript printer drivers to accomplish this.  Another option I have read about is to use ghostscript instead of distiller.   Questions: 1)       Will Distiller create better quality PDF’s than ghostscript or other pdf solutions?  (Keep in mind, these PDF’s being created are professional reports) 2)       I have read how Acrobat handles fonts in PDF creation.  Will a postscript printout be able to maintain font information if the local font is not installed? 3)       Might we be better off just pointing the Distiller font location to a network directory containing our font cache? 4)       What are some optimal settings to use to create high quality PDF files? (such as compatibility setting)   Finally, is my research correct that Acrobat 6.0 standard does not include the “watched folders” option in distiller?   Thank you,   Kevin Hammond Network Administrator NRS Corporation 608-273-4665 x223 http://www.nrscorp.com/