[pdftex] [tex-live] PDF 1.5 by default in TL 2010

[Jim Diamond]

On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 12:04 (+0000), Philip TAYLOR wrote:

> Manuel Pégourié-Gonnard wrote:
>
>> Sure, but then you could stay with TL09, or install a free viewer just for
>> viewing while keeping AA for the rest, tune your TL2010 to produce 1.4,
>> etc. They are plenty of options and the choice is yours. Put another way: you
>> *can* read compressed PDF 1.5 if you want to, it's merely a matter of personal
>> choice.
>
> The problem is (and this problem does not originate with TL)
> is that all versions of PDF use the same file extension
> (.pdf), and on any given system, that extension can be
> conveniently associated with at most one utility).

Ah, the joys of the overly-simplistic idea that it makes sense to
associate one program with a given extension.

If this is (easily) do-able under your favourite OS, could you write a
program which, when given a PDF, Does The Right Thing and calls either
AA 5 or AR 9 (or whatever) on the file, as appropriate?  And then
associate this program with '.pdf' ?

(I have a shell script which does a generalization of this: when
passed one or more file names, it checks my rules to see which program
I want to use for that/these file type(s), and runs the corresponding
program(s) on the file(s).  I have found it much easier to do this
than to fuss around trying to get the right entries into .mime.types
and other similar things.)

Cheers.
				Jim