[pdftex] MediaBox?

[Heiko Oberdiek]

At 16:49 14.06.2001 +0200, Otfried Cheong wrote:
>
> > I am not an expert at pdf or pdftex nor at any evolving standards and I
> > can't appreciate all the consequences of making some change especially
> > when /ArtBox is a new feature in an evolving pdf standard. Having said
> > that it strikes me that /MediaBox in pdf corresponds to %%DocumentSize
> > in ps and /ArtBox corresponds to %%BoundingBox in ps. Hence when
> > \includegraphics looks for %%BoundingBox for (e)ps inclusion it should
> > look for /ArtBox for pdf inclusion.
>
>I agree.  This all sounds very much as if pdftex should check the
>ArtBox, and fall back on the MediaBox if it's not defined.  The only
>question is whether this should replace the current CropBox check, or
>whether it should be an additional level.

I think the following rules:
  If ArtBox is not present, it should take the value of CropBox.
  If CropBox is not present, it should take the value of MediaBox.
  It is an error, if MediaBox is not present.
(perhaps similar with TrimBox, ...)

But it is a bad idea to start at ArtBox always.
Some people wants to include the whole pages, especially,
if they run pdfTeX to rearrange the pages of a pdf file
(pdfpages, ...). So the syntax of \pdfximage should be
extended to say, which Box type pdfTeX should looks first.

Yours sincerely
  Heiko <oberdiek at uni-freiburg.de>