[pdftex] Incorrect pdf produced from a single correct pdf file

[Smg Mailinglist Archive]

Dear list,

I have a problem using pdftex to deal with a specific pdf file, http://perso.univ-rennes1.fr/denis.delgay-troise/RMI/Tds/RMItd24.pdf.

Consider the following RMI24-tex.tex file.

----
pdfximage{RMItd24.pdf}
pdfrefximagethepdflastximage
bye
----

Typing "pdftex RMI24-tex.tex" produces a one-page PDF with an almost entirely blank page, only a page number is displayed at the footer. That PDF file is attached.

Someone else tried the very same command on his computer, with the pdftex version 'pdfTeX 3.141592-1.40.3-2.2 (Web2C 7.5.6)', and he got a correct PDF (although he was also seeing a blank page with my PDF)! What's going on here?

/Context/ - I am trying to join several PDF files using LaTeX and the pdfpages package, more specifically the pdfinclude command. The "someone else" here above is Andreas Matthias (from pdfpages package) who suggested me to try this pdftex file. I must say I don't know TeX, so I'm not really sure of what I'm doing here ;-). But I know for sure that the same tex file on two different systems should not produce two different PDFs!

/System/ - I am running Debian Lenny (testing), up-to-date as of today. I hope you will pardon me from not using the latest pdftex version, but I am not sure how to deal with a version of pdftex which would not be included in the Debian packaging (and I don't want to break my system!). Looking at http://www.tug.org/applications/pdftex/NEWS, it does not seem that a more recent version would solve that problem. And anyway, Mathias was apparently using the same version (except for the "-2.2" behind, what's this?) and does not have the problem, so I would say there is some problem specific to my system rather than a problem in pdftex itself...

/Log file/ - Here is the RMI24-tex.log file. I don't know if the overfull vbox warning is important here?
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This is pdfTeXk, Version 3.141592-1.40.3 (Web2C 7.5.6) (format=pdftex 2008.10.3)  3 OCT 2008 09:20
entering extended mode
 %&-line parsing enabled.
**RMI24-tex.tex
(./RMI24-tex.tex
Overfull vbox (211.95496pt too high) has occurred while output is active
vbox(643.20255+0.0)x597.23125
pdfrefximage(845.1575+0.0)x597.23125
glue(topskip) 10.0
hbox(0.0+0.0)x469.75499
glue 0.0 plus 1.0fill


[1{/var/lib/texmf/fonts/map/pdftex/updmap/pdftex.map} <./RMItd24.pdf>] )</usr/s
hare/texmf-texlive/fonts/type1/bluesky/cm/cmr10.pfb>
Output written on RMI24-tex.pdf (1 page, 11692 bytes).
PDF statistics:
 22 PDF objects out of 1000 (max. 8388607)
 0 named destinations out of 1000 (max. 131072)
 6 words of extra memory for PDF output out of 10000 (max. 10000000)
----

Thank you for any help.
Olivier
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