[vox] Linux equivalent to PageMaker?

["John C. Alden" <jcalden@ucdaviMAPSs.edu>]

A which-app question.

Have a faculty member who wants to insert some images into a LaTeX document, then blow it up to a 4'x4' in a PDF "version" that Kinko's can print. (Apparently they're picky about PDFs. They accept Windows-app-created PDFs no problem. Go figure. :-/ ).

I'm told LaTeX pages can be turned into bitmaps, but was concerned that expanded bitmaps could look trashy or pixellated--as opposed to scalable PostScript-style fonts (http://www.gimp.org/fonts.html).

I immediately thought of the GIMP http://www.gimp.org/ (and mentally D'OH! kicked myself for missing Bill's great presentation at LUGOD).

Am I correct in assuming that the GIMP can do everything that PhotoShop can do, but not necessarily everything PageMaker can do? I *really* don't want to have a Linux-wielding professor have to buy and use a M$ product (PageMaker) if I can help it (hey--he suggested it!).

Is there a Linux page-layout program that anyone can recommend that can handle PostScript or take LaTeX output and scale nicely into PDFs?

Can LaTeX already do this?  Should I be looking at GhostScript instead? (http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/index.htm)

Thanks!  (supporting Linux is new to me.)

--john

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John C. Alden, jcalden@ucdavis.edu      530-754-7210
Programmer-Analyst III                  530-304-7443 cell
Department of Applied Science   530-752-0360 (front desk)
University of California, Davis 530-752-2444 fax
http://www.das.ucdavis.edu/
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