XML Vocabulary for PostScript

[Yash Sharma]

I am planning to propose an XML vocabulary at a consortium. It is
aimed to substitute PostScript as a printing standard. I wish to know
if there was any parallel effort similar to this, and also a general
opinion on how feasible it might be. What I am looking to do is create
a vocabulary which can carry all the information that a PostScript
file carries to a custom developed interpreter that will rasterize it
for print. The advantages this will have over postscript is that it
will be more portable and user friendly than postscript. Also, it
might aid in generating clearer and more intuitive error messages in
case of an errors in parsing. There are similar efforts (closest being
ppml), but none of them aims to directly substitute PostScript.

All opinions would be appreciated.

 

[Ed Beroset]

I am planning to propose an XML vocabulary at a consortium. It is
aimed to substitute PostScript as a printing standard. [...]
All opinions would be appreciated.

Not an opinion, really, but a question. What problem is there with
PostScript that this approach is intended to solve?

Ed

 

[Jeroen Dekker]

Have you looked into the print initiatives of the SVG working group at
the W3C?
http://www.w3.org/TR/SVGPrint/

My company by the way makes software that batch converts PostScript
(and PDF) to XML-standard SVG. Vector graphics, raster images and font
text strings are all supported and preserved as such.

Jeroen Dekker

 

[Pierre]

I am planning to propose an XML vocabulary at a consortium. It is
aimed to substitute PostScript as a printing standard.
All opinions would be appreciated.

This already exists as 'SVG':
see http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/

 

[Jeroen Dekker]

This already exists as 'SVG':

see http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/

While the SVG imaging model is largely based on that of PostScript,
the regular SVG standard misses a number of print concepts to make it
a 1:1 XML substitution for PostScript (for sending documents to a
printer). That is why there's a SVG Print project in the works - see
my earlier post.

Display-wise, yes: pretty much anything you can display as PostScript,
you can also display as SVG. Vector graphics, raster images, font text
strings. That is what our customers use our ps2vector software for.

Jeroen Dekker