[OS X TeX] TeXLive 2004, PDFTeX magnification problem.

[Bruno Voisin]

Le 29 déc. 04, à 18:34, Herb Schulz a écrit :

> It's amazing how this group discusses things just as they hit me. I 
> was just
> about to look up the previous discussion, started by Bruno, about the
> magnification problem with the latest pdftex because I ran into it when
> trying to use an old TeX style file I wrote too many years ago that 
> formats
> multi-page outlines. The printing was way off and then I remembered the
> problem since it used \magnification=\magstephalf at the beginning of 
> the
> style file. Bruno's solution works great. I wonder how it can be 
> generalized
> to pick up the page values in the pdftexconfig.tex file and have come 
> up
> with:
>
> \catcode`@=11
>  \def\m at g{\mag\count@
>    \hsize6.5truein\vsize8.9truein\dimen\footins8truein
>    \ifx\pdfoutput\undefined\else
> %    \pdfpagewidth8.5truein\pdfpageheight11truein
>     \input pdftexconfig.tex
>     \pdfhorigin1truein\pdfvorigin1truein
>    \fi}
> \catcode`@=12
>
> I'm not sure if the rest of the values are defaults for all setups.

Hi Herb,

In an off-list discussion, Hartmut Henkel suggested to Thomas Esser 
(the te behind teTeX) that the "true" units in pdftexconfig.tex could 
be removed, arguing that it's not likely a normal TeX user would want 
to \input pdftexconfig.tex in normal TeX operation and in the other 
situation when pdftexconfig.tex is read, namely by INITEX when creating 
formats, true units are not taken into account. Hence, if this 
modification is indeed done, the above solution, relying on 
pdftexconfig.tex to use true units, wouldn't work any longer.

I see another problem with using pdftexconfig.tex in the definition of 
\magnification: pdftexconfig.tex contains either US Letter or A4 
settings, depending on the choice made during installation of teTeX. 
For example, mine contains (since I live in Europe where A4 is the 
standard paper size):

% Set pdfTeX parameters for pdf mode (replacing pdftex.cfg file).
% Thomas Esser, 2004. public domain.
\pdfoutput=1
\pdfcompresslevel=9
\pdfdecimaldigits=3
\pdfpagewidth=594.99 true bp
\pdfpageheight=841.99 true bp
\pdfhorigin=1 true in
\pdfvorigin=1 true in
\pdfpkresolution=600
\pdfoptionpdfminorversion=4
\endinput

(with A4 being 595 x 842 true bp). On the other hand, the plain TeX 
format and the definition of \magnification inside it are specifically 
for US Letter paper. Hence the above solution, relying on 
pdftexconfig.tex to contain settings for US Letter paper, would only 
work in countries using this paper.

Cheers,

Bruno
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