[XeTeX] XeTeX, XeTeXpicfile, and transparency

[Jonathan Kew]

On 16 Mar 2012, at 12:32, Philip TAYLOR wrote:

> 
> Universe of discourse : Plain XeTeX.
> 
> I know that XeTeX has some support for transparency,
> but the TeX Live documentation for XeTeXpicfile has
> nothing to say on the subject :
> 
>> \XeTeXpdffile ‹filename› [ page ‹int› ] [ crop | media | bleed | trim | art ]
>> [ scaled ‹int› | xscaled ‹int› | yscaled ‹int› | width ‹dimen› |
>> height ‹dimen› | rotated ‹decimal› ]
>> Insert (pages of) a . See below for explanation of optional arguments
> 
> If I were to want to insert an image with (say) 90% transparency
> (i.e., 10% opacity), how might I best go about this ?

This would depend on the output driver's capabilities - xetex doesn't have any built-in magic to do this, but I wouldn't be surprised if xdvipdfmx supports \special{}s that can achieve it. Possibly a \special before the \XeTeXpdffile command to set up transparency, and another afterwards to restore it. I'd suggest checking the dvipdfmx documentation for anything that looks promising.

JK