[tex-k] [bug] minus sign in MetaPost labels disappears withdvips(k) 5.90a

[Stephan Hennig]

Sorry, I just realized the answer to Akira was accidentally not sent to
this list but as p.m. Akira kindly replied already. I attached that here
for completeness.

*********************
Akira Kakuto schrieb:

>> I used dvips(k) 5.90a. The minus sign disappeared. Did I miss
>> something?
>>
>> Is there any workaround for dvips already?
>
> Please do not use the "obsolete" -G1 option. In the next release of
> teTeX, -G1 option is disabled in config.pdf.

But what is obsolete with the -G1 switch? In the german TeX-FAQ
<URL:http://www.dante.de/faq/de-tex-faq/txt/de-tex-faq.txt> in the
answer to question (translated)

  "9.2.4 Why are there some ligatures or several symbolic characters
missing in my postscript document created via dvips?"

a bug in Acrobat Reader 4.0 is mentioned as the reason for introducing
the -G1 switch. But sadly, this application is not obsolete. As I told
in comp.text.tex already (probably I should have added this context in
my mail, too) I´m involved in a project with a rather large company that
still uses Acrobat Reader 4.0. And I want to avoid delivering a single
document with missing characters or the like. As I´m convinced AR4.0 is
still wide spread in business I wished there was a patch or workaround
available.

Because I don´t have a copy of AR4.0 at hand I can´t test my documents.
But I see, I have to install that application to be sure. So far once
more the question: Is the -G1 switch really obsolete even with AR4.0?
*********************

Akira already replied -G1 should not be necessary with AR4.0 anymore.
Thanks, Akira! Fortunately, the bug with pdfLaTeX and MetaPost is fixed
now. So if I encountered any problems with dvips and AR4.0 I can switch
to pdfLaTeX. Though, I spotted other bugs with pdfLaTeX and AR4.0 some
time ago.

Regards,
Stephan Hennig