[XeTeX] @revisionflag and XeTeX

[maxwell]

I'm sending this query to both the XeTeX and the dblatex mailing lists.

We were hoping to use revision flags in our DocBook XML doc, and have them
come out as change bars in the PDF.  Dblatex converts these into \cbstart{}
and \cbend tags{} in its output, which are used by the LaTeX 'changebar'
package.  But we use XeLaTeX, and apparently the changebar package is
incompatible with XeLaTeX (or with its PDF driver).  There was a discussion
a year or so ago between Rocky Zhang and Robin Fairbairns about this
incompatibility, but afaik the problem has not been resolved in the package
distribution from TeXLive (and maybe not in general).

Assuming no fix to make the changebar package work with XeLaTeX is in
immediate sight, there may be other ways to mark changes which would be
compatible with XeTeX.  Underlining for additions and line-outs for
deletions, for instance, or even just color coding.  Of course, in the
context of DocBook XML is that the changes are usually indicated at the
level of an element like <para>, rather than exactly the words that have
been changed, so lining out an entire paragraph when only a few words have
been deleted would be the wrong thing to do.  (Fine grain changes can be
represented in principle using DB's <phrase>, but in fact one usually uses
an XML diff program, which won't tag things at that level.)  At any rate, I
would think there are alternatives to change bars.

Has anyone experimented with solutions to this issue, either in dblatex or
in XeLaTeX itself?

   Mike Maxwell
   CASL/ U MD