Craig, No big deal.
At this point, the point is moot as Pierre discovered the piece I was missing within the current file format for my purposes. I would like to see Scribus move to using an implementation of SVG as it's file format and I think there a lot of good reasons for doing so - industry support, extensibility, numerous applications to manipulate it, it's fully documented, etc... The Hex values I provided were from Pantone CMYK reference color charts that we use in our daily printing. We take these reference charts and print them on our presses. We then use a color matching hardware tool (I'm unsure of the name or brand we use) to generate values from these printed charts that we then use to build a custom color swatch set for use within InDesign. It also produces an ICC profile file that we can use to get hardcopy proofs off of our color copiers that are visually accurate. I think you are confusing the default screen nature of SVG which is generally limited to 72 DPI and web safe colors which are 8-bit in nature. There is nothing in the SVG spec that limits SVG to that, it's as you say, a limitation of the current implementations of SVG which to date have primarily involved web based uses as a browser plug-in. However if someone wanted to implement SVG in a DTP application, all of the pieces are there in the specification to do so. This is a quote from the current W3C SVG Print working draft (http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-SVGPrintPrimer12-20071221/): "Because of its scalable, geometric nature, SVG is inherently better suited to print than raster image formats. The same geometry can be displayed on screen and on a printer, with identical layout in both but taking advantage of the higher resolution of print media. The same colors can be output, using an ICC-based color managed workflow on the printer and an sRGB fallback approximation on screen. This has been true since SVG 1.0, and so SVG has been used in print workflows (for example, in combination with XSL FO) as well as on screen." As you can see SVG (the original not just the newer SVG Print extension) was designed for print purposes. It only uses sRGB as a fallback when displaying the SVG document on screen. The newer SVG Print 1.2 specification is meant to allow the SVG document type to integrate with other print industry standards such as JDF. Basically the W3C is doing all the work to develop an open, well documented format, that is designed for print. It's just a matter of someone picking up from there and developing the ultimate DTP application to take advantage of that. Unfortunately that's not me, I am not a programmer. But if such a tool was available, I would influence my peers to use it and would contribute in any way that I could whether it was testing, documenting, or providing support. Adobe is a huge backer of SVG, but they won't use it for DTP because then their market share for InDesign would be vulnerable from applications like Scribus that could take advantage of the open nature of SVG. It's in their best interest to keep InDesign a proprietary file format, same as Microsoft with it's document formats. Scribus is in a position where it could turn the DTP industry on their heads by adopting a file format that everyone had access to with a well built front-end application that allows ease of use with standard DTP layout tools. The only thing that is holding SVG back from being the defacto DTP file format is a DTP application that uses it as such, and a marketing blitzkrieg to push the advantages that it would provide. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:scribus-bounces at kirsche.altmuehlnet.de] On Behalf Of Craig Ringer Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 11:57 PM To: scribus at kirsche.altmuehlnet.de Cc: scribus at kirsche.altmuehlnet.de Subject: Re: [Scribus] Comment about object tag names and xml file format Hmm, that came out grumpier than intended. Sorry. I'm dealing with drooling morons with the phone system at work right now, as well as trying to figure out what some "support consultants" have done to my production machines to prevent Quark from printing landscape all of a sudden. Argh. I suspect some of that frustration carried over into my general manner. *goes for a nice, relaxing walk* -- Craig Ringer _______________________________________________ Scribus mailing list Scribus at nashi.altmuehlnet.de http://nashi.altmuehlnet.de/mailman/listinfo/scribus
