PDF and PS

Every time a PostScript file lands on my desktop, I'm amazed that Adobe hasn't chosen to support the format in Acrobat Reader. Certainly, early on in the life of PDF, Adobe had incentive not to support PostScript in Acrobat -- many free apps could write the PS format, and Adobe's strategy was to make money on writing the files, not reading them, so supporting PostScript viewing in Acrobat would have cut into PDF's base.

But now, 12 years after PDF burst on the scene, the battle has been won. PDF has gone far beyond its page layout roots and has spawned a whole family of products for Adobe, while PostScript has generally been relegated to a few dusty corners of academia where TeX still reigns. (I'm talking mainly about text documents here.) I was curious to see how severely PDF trumped PS in the popular vote, so I checked with Google on a few random terms:

word	Number of PDF docs	Number of PS docs
dog	1,930,000	18,100
topology	1,080,000	160,000
election	4,330,000	15,300
electron	2,580,000	95,100

As you probably guessed, it's a landslide.

So what's a poor user to do when he wants to read a PS file? Assuming he doesn't have a copy of Illustrator handy, he's going to need to find and install GhostScript and GhostView. GhostScript is a very powerful and flexible application (it has no problem handling PS, EPS, and PDF files, among others), but the viewer lacks the polish of a commercial offering. From my perscpective, forcing consumers to use a third-party app such as GhostScript tarnishes Adobe's reputation -- it makes it appear as though Adobe has turned its back on its firstborn.

Obviously it would require effort for Adobe to add PS support in Acrobat Reader, even though all of the hard work is already done. There might even be a bit of customer support cost to go along with it. But in the long run, I imagine those costs would be a drop in the bucket compared to Acrobat's revenue and it would generate goodwill among the academic community.

So come on Adobe, dance with the one who brung ya.