[pdftex] define pdf variable and then reference it?

[James Quirk]

On Thu, 1 Jun 2006, Thierry Bouche wrote:

>
> V> Instead of trying to change pdf why you do not try to change the
> V> source and then regenerate pdf?
>
> Well, if it's only adding a heading or watermark to some existing PDF,
> my feeling is that, while  generating a new PDF from source might be
> slow, using pdfpages to just include the existing PDF and add things
> over the pages is very fast, simple to achieve, and reliable.
The one weakness of using pdfpages, as touched on by an earlier thread, is 
that widget annotations will not be preserved from the original document; 
at least not with the standard version of pdfpages. In this regard, the 
pdftk route nominally works. However, I have some documents where it gets 
confused by the amount of embedded JavaScript with the result that the 
background is not added. Therefore, as with all software, I'm afraid
it's a case of user beware!

James