[OS X TeX] pdfLaTeX

[Mark Smith]

there's an ongoing thread over on MacOSX-talk relating to the generation of PDF files in OS X specifically about the fact that a lot of "advanced" PDF features can be tapped with e.g. pdflatex which are not immeiately available in Quartz.

Quoting Steve Harley:

>that pdflatex bypasses PostScript (and dvi) completely...
>
>...suggests that it either generates PDF internally, or hooks into the
>graphics primitives in Quartz (earlier i miswrote Aqua) that in turn
>render directly into PDF
>
>Patrick and i both suspect it's the former, but the reason the latter
>would be interesting is that it would show there's a way to add various
>"extras" like bookmarks to the Quartz-based PDF-generation available to
>all Mac OS X apps.. if true, this means there's more potential for Mac OS
>X to directly compete with Adobe products in complex PDF workflows

So, I thought I'd ask here where the real TeXperts are to be found:

What exactly happens in this regard with pdflatex in OS X ?

What role, if any, is played by the Quartz-based PDF generation code ?

wtia,

mark.
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