[pdftex] PDF 1.6

[Reinhard Kotucha]

>>>>> "Martin" == Martin Schröder <ms at artcom-gmbh.de> writes:

  > On 2004-11-15 11:18:00 +0100, Hans Hagen wrote:
  >> Martin Schröder wrote: >It's only available as PDF1.5 :-(
  >> 
  >> that's rather usual in the pdf ref manuals: explaining
  >> fundamental features using old functionality -)

  > Agreed. But in this case it means that I can't read it on
  > Linux. :-(

To be more precise, you can't read it under Linux with Adobe
software.  You can at least with xpdf.  I didn't try gs yet, but it's
very likely that this works, too.

Well, you can even read it with acroread 5.08 under Linux if you do
not insist on hyperlinks.

Put the following file into the directory in which you have
PDFReference16.pdf and run it through pdftex. 

refman.tex:
-----------------------------------------------------------
\def\file{PDFReference16.pdf}
\pdfcompresslevel=0
\pdfhorigin0pt 
\pdfvorigin0pt
\pdfoptionpdfminorversion 5

\pdfximage page 1 {\file} 
\count0=1
\count255=\pdflastximagepages \advance\count255 by 1

\def\recurse{\ifnum\count0 < \count255
  \setbox0\hbox{\pdfximage page \count0 {\file}
  \pdfrefximage\pdflastximage}%
  \pdfpagewidth=\wd0 \pdfpageheight=\ht0 \shipout\box0
  \advance\count0 by 1 \expandafter\recurse\fi}

\recurse\bye
-----------------------------------------------------------

acroread will complain that you are using an old version 

 > This file may contain newer information than this viewer can
 > support. It may not open or display correctly. Adobe recommends
 > that you upgrade to the latest version of our Acrobat
 > products. Please visit our product site at
 > http://www.adobe.com/acrobat

and probably there are still problems.  I did not scroll through the
whole document because this is quite time consuming (1236 pages).

To get rid of the warning message, load refman.pdf into a text editor
and replace %PDF-1.5 by %PDF-1.4 at the very beginning of the file.

\pdfoptionpdfminorversion 5 is needed by pdftex, otherwise it
complains and aborts, which is absolutely correct behavior.

Note that it's not sufficient to change the %PDF-1.x comment in the
original file.  There *are* new features used in the file which
cannot be processed by AR-5.xx.  But pdftex can be a solution if
those features are not seen by pdftex (\pdfximage).

Unfortunately, one of the features \pdfximage does not see are
hyperlinks. 

I remember a talk held by Yannis Haralambous at the DANTE-2000
with the title "TeX löst alle Probleme" ("TeX solves all problems").
This is certainly a bit exaggerated, but sometimes I'm quite
amazed what pdftex can do.  In such moments I remember the title
of Yannis' talk...

Regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha			              Phone: +49-511-4592165
Marschnerstr. 25
D-30167 Hannover	                      mailto:reinhard.kotucha at web.de
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