Do you know that the State of Hawaii does not use graphics programs in generating copies of birth certificates?
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I do not work for the state of Hawaii but to assume that they use a graphics program to put text onto preprinted forms is a ridiculous premise ,, you use a text editor... in this case it is probably a CICS or IMS transaction creating a VSAM or DB2 database entry which is then directed to a printer ,, the CICS or IMS transaction program would have the formatting for placement of the datafields (name , place of birth etc. etc. etc) designed in... IMS is the older of the two but may not have been around prior to the early 1970’s ,, version 1.x was still in use in 1981 when I started with it... the original BC was probably encoded on a punched card (2501 or similar device) and printed manually with a typewriter as most computer printers back then fed only continuous greenbar,,, later ,, perhaps in the 1970’s the punched card records were read into an online database (VSAM based) ...
Plain talk's question is not ridiculous. There are two ways you could produce the certificate we are seeing. You could laser-print the database output on stationery preprinted with the green pattern and Hawaii insignia and black border (or, as long as we're antiquing here, you could feed pin-fed forms through a 1403 with a PN train and a mylar ribbon). Or you generate the entire image in the computer, database output, green pattern, black border and all, and laser-print that on plain paper. Of course, to do the latter, you need a color printer and much fancier software. But you get out of having to keep the preprinted forms in inventory. Prompted by differences in the border details, some have speculated that Hawaii may have switched from the first method to the second sometime between DaCosta and Obama.
I wonder if the original document is somewhere. Or did they destroy it after entering its key details into the database? The last time I asked for my birth certificate, they gave me a cruddy photostat of the original, embossed with a raised seal and an official signature. No doubt it costs less to do it the way Hawaii does it.