When I opened this book, I found a CD-ROM, and I could not resist trying its contents. There are programs for converting ASCII and JPEG files to Postscript, programs for reading Portable Document Format (PDF) files, and a whole range of similar utility programs. Executables are provided for Windows, MS-DOS, OS/2, Macintosh, and common Unix platforms; many come with source code. There are also a number of test and demonstration programs written in Postscript. Most of the programs are in the public domain, and you could get them from the Web--if you had the patience. But you would have to know what you were looking for, and how to compile, install, and use what you eventually found. The appendices of this book cover all that and explain how to acquire more recent versions of the software.

The author works as a software developer, translator of technical books, and freelance writer. He has put together an easily digestible book that conveys his obvious expertise in cross-platform publishing.

The first chapter introduces Postscript as a page description language with powerful graphics functions that can  handle  geometric components, text in various typefaces, and bitmaps. He outlines its development since the early 1980s, and discusses various Postscript interpreter and raster image processor (RIP) implementations in both software and hardware.

The components of a Postscript file are described in chapter 2. These include integrated Postscript drivers and Document Structuring Convention (DSC) comments. Merz discusses encapsulated Postscript (EPS) in chapter 3. He describes the formats commonly used with various operating systems (such as TIFF and WMF for Windows), along with some other formats, including Adobe Illustrator. He also presents troubleshooting and conversion procedures.

Each of the subsequent chapters, “Postscript Fonts,” “Postscript Level 2,” “Gray Levels and Color,” and “Display Postscript,” provides detailed coverage of its subject, with numerous illustrations and examples to facilitate  comprehension. 

In chapter 8, Merz discusses the recent evolution of PDF and its associated Acrobat programs into Web tools. There are suggestions for incorporating Web links in PDF files, optimizing PDF files for browser use, and editing PDF documents.

The final chapter contains miscellaneous suggestions for optimizing print performance, preparing data for a service bureau, and editing and converting various formats. Some character set tables and a short bibliography end the book.

If you are a systems administrator, or if you work in the pre-press or publishing industry, you will find much use for this book, and its binding is durable enough for that level of usage. You may find an occasional word in the paragraph titles that was not correctly translated from the original German, but you will not find much else to criticize.