[texhax] PostScript output (from XeTeX)?

[Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd)]

I'm probably baying at the moon, or clutching at straws, or
whatever, but given the origins of PDF I wonder if there
might not be some way of putting a PostsScript wrapper
around a PDF such that the resulting document is fully
PostScript compliant and processable by a PostScript RIP ?

Philip Taylor

Or maybe not :

> An application printing a PDF document to a PostScript device must follow these steps:
> 1.Insert procedure sets containing PostScript procedure definitions to implement the PDF operators.
> 2.Extract the content for each page. Each content stream is essentially the script portion of a traditional PostScript program using very specific procedures, such as m for moveto and l for lineto.
> 3.Decode compressed text, graphics, and image data as necessary. The compression filters used in PDF are compatible with those used in PostScript; they may or may not be supported, depending on the LanguageLevel of the target output device.
> 4.Insert any needed resources, such as fonts, into the PostScript file. These can be either the original fonts or suitable substitute fonts based on the font metrics in the PDF file. Fonts may need to be converted to a format that the PostScript interpreter recognizes, such as Type 1 or Type 42.
> 5.Put the information in the correct order. The result is a traditional PostScript program that fully represents the visual aspects of the document but no longer contains PDF elements such as hypertext links, annotations, and bookmarks.
> 6.Transmit the PostScript program to the output device.