All You Can
Eat!
It's six years
ago now, that I nearly left Calamus. When a
system becomes
obviously obsolete it's time for a change. Then Invers,
the Calamus company, developed the Bridge module
which was able to export
PDF. I was thrilled how easy it was to export
almost anything I had done with
Calamus to PDF with a mouse click - and I stood
with Calamus.
Some time went
by and Invers came out with CALIPSO
(CAL Import PostScript Objects).
I was not so pleased because I hardly managed
to import any EPS. Well,
you could do some tricks to make it work and
I wrote a MyAtari article
about this import hassle.
I am personally
proud of one little thing: when I became a beta-tester
of Porthos - the
PDF browser - I asked if it would be able to
save CVG vector graphics. Wolfgang Domröse
said he did not have the format discription.
I got it by chance
12 years before and mailed it to him. Through this, Porthos
became able to export vector graphics and pictures, too.
Porthos was nice to have, but with export
capabilities
it became part of the Calamus work-flow.
Now the PDF browser
mutated into a Calamus import module which rocks.
![[Screen-shot: Calipso 3 information dialog]](images/getcon01.gif)
You can import
any PDF and the whole thing will be loaded into
Calamus.
![[Screen-shot: Import progress bar]](images/getcon02.gif)
The text becomes
vector graphics, that's the only sad thing, but still looks
exactly like it should. Even a difficult
PDF with lots of vector information comes out
superb.
![[Screen-shot: Imported page]](images/getcon03.gif)
Any logo, any
frame, it's all there. There is no converting
any more. Just imagine
you get a PDF document on-line, which you are
asked to fill out. You
open it with Calamus, fill out the form, export
it with Bridge as PDF
again and mail it away - that's pretty cool.
Or you need a
logo from a company - just get a PDF from its
web site
and you have it in no time.
Now, I am
happy to say, Calamus on the import
side not an island any more.
For beginners it's still some work to get into
the Calamus concept, but even with lots
of modules it's cheaper than Quark (which is,
by the way, the German word for
chester) Express - and much more power without
the price.
christoph@myatari.net
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