History
 -  About BePDF
 -  Version History
 -  Acknowledgements
 -  Known Bugs
 -  Upcoming Features
 
 Program Requirements
 -  BePDF Requirements
 -  Asian Font Sets
 -  Ghostscript
 -  ZapfDingbats
 
 Installation
 -  BePDF Program
 -  Deskbar Replicant
 -  Base 14 Fonts
 -  ZapfDingbats
 
 User Interface
 -  Program Layout
 -  ToolBar
 -  Preferences
 -  Keyboard Commands
 -  Mouse Controls
 
 Printing
 -  General
 -  Font Renderer
 -  Page Size
 
 Localization
 -  Localization
 
 
 
  Notes for WebMasters
 
Graphical Interface

Preferences


The "Document" panel of the preferences window allows the user to

  • Set a bookmark at the last page viewed when re-opening a previously viewed document (especially handy for long documents)
  • Have BePDF remember window size and screen position
  • Open BePDF in the workspace as designated



The "Display" panel allows the user to set customize the full screen viewing properties and the graphical selection area display. Also, if Ghostscript is installed, one may enable the Ghostscript Renderer in this subpanel. When the Ghostscript renderer is enabled, the native renderer is disabled. Though BePDF supports Ghostscript, there are some known vector graphics rendering issues.



Using the "Native Renderer" the user has the option to customize rendering properties of the native BePDF renderer.

The Type 3 font renderer is very slow when it is enabled, though BePDF will render bitmap fonts quite well. Vector fonts, however, have the same issues as all vector graphics operations when it comes to fill modes using the Type 3 font renderer (please refer to Known Bugs), and the glyphs are not anti-aliased. If the Type 3 font renderer is disabled, Type 3 fonts will not be substituted and no Type 3 text will be shown.

If Freetype is disabled in BePDF, a substitute font is used in its place. The substituted font is quickly rendered, but it might not contain all the glyphs in the pdf file embedded font. For this reason, the output of some characters may be missing or incorrect. The size of the substituted font characters also may not represent the intended font size.

Please note that if Freetype is enabled, rendering will be as fast without anti-aliasing as it is when using anti-aliasing. 'Hinting,' when enabled, should generate higher quality glyphs, but does not in the current implementation of Freetype 2.0.5. Therefore it should be disabled. 'Sub-pixel precise positioning' increases rendering quality but is slightly slower.

It is recommended that the Type 3 font renderer be disabled, and enabled only if it is necessary. Enabling the FreeType renderer is recommended for faster machines.


 
In the "Ghostscript Renderer" subpanel, the user may customize the way in which BePDF anti-aliases using the GhostScript renderer for text or graphics. The best document quality can be achieved when anti-aliasing is enabled for both text and graphics, however a good compromise between speed and display quality would be to enable anti-aliasing for text only. If GhostScript is not installed the Ghostscript panel will display brief instructions regarding installation of the renderer.


 
The "ColorSpace" subpanel sets the color depth within which BePDF will display fonts and graphics. These options are available since the offscreen bitmap that contains the rendered page may become quite large (though this should be not a problem in later versions of BePDF). The color depths are directly related to the memory requirements (e.g. 16 bpp requires twice as much memory size as 8 bpp and 32 bpp requires 4 times the memory size as 8 bpp). For best quality and speed, the color depth should be set to the color depth of the current workspace where BePDF is active.



The "Update Frequency" subpanel allows the user to select the rate at which BePDF refreshes the document as it is being rendered. This value is measured in updates per second (hertz). It is recommended that the update frequency be set for three updates per second, but slower machines may benefit from an update frequency of one or less. If updating is disabled, rendering progress may only be witnessed if the system forces a repaint of the document view (e.g. when other windows are moved over the document view or workspace is switched).


 
The "Languages" subpanel allow the user to set the localization of BePDF to have menus and text within BePDF displayed in a comfortable language. Because this feature changes the displayed language, users should take care not to change the localization to a language that is unfamiliar; doing so may lead to difficulty in navigating BePDF. Also, several lanugages require special fonts to display native characters; the user should ensure these fonts are properly installed prior to changing the language settings.