3. Graphic model

PDF can be seen as a document format emphasizing graphic and typographic precision. In this sense, it is very close to the PostScript language, whose graphic model it shared until version 1.4. PDF describes each page using a predefined list of PostScript operators 4.3 , making translation virtually immediate.

On the other hand, PDF documents can be viewed or printed without the need for a complete PostScript system. PDF is therefore positioned upstream of PostScript...