[pdftex] PDF 1.5 by default in TL 2010

[John Culleton]

On Sunday 10 January 2010 20:09:13 Karl Berry wrote:
> (Sorry for the cross-posting.)
>
> For TL 2010, we would like to change the default PDF output version
> to PDF 1.5 (proposed by Elie Roux).  This is so we can use
> \pdfcompresslevel and generate noticeably smaller PDF's by default.
>
> The executables etex, pdftex, pdflatex, luatex, and lualatex would
> be affected (among other more obscure ones).  Of course it's
> irrelevant to "tex". ConTeXt has been using 1.5 for some time.
>
> We've done a fair amount of research and can't find any significant
> and reasonably current software that doesn't support 1.5.  For
> instance, Acrobat5 does not read it, but Acrobat6 does. 
> PDFBox-0.7.3.jar (3 years old) doesn't read it, but 0.8 (>1 year)
> does.
>
> >From Taco, we know that the iLiad e-reader and others do not
> > support
>
> 1.5, but they have such specialized needs anyway that this does not
> seem like a stopper.
>
> If anyone knows of other reasons not to make the change, please
> speak up.
>
> This'll be mentioned again, but I thought to bring it up early,
> too.
>
> Thanks,
> Karl
Some major POD printers want cover art and other color material to be 
in pdf X/1-a:2001, and old and restrictive standard. So perhaps there 
should be a command to select the pdf output model, and pdf x/1-a 
should be included.  I convinced the Scribus people to offer that model 
on their developmental version (1.5.0).
-- 
John Culleton
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