[tex-eplain] Problems with eplain and pdftex when converting Metapost images to pdf (was: eplain manual source)

[Rodolfo Medina]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 12:52:43PM +0000, Rodolfo Medina wrote:

>> the hyperlink target is reached quite exactly but not `exactly'.  When
>> choosing the `Continuosu view' in xpdf, they are very bad.


Oleg Katsitadze <olegkat at gmail.com> writes:

> For that you'd have to use pdftex or dvipdfmx


Yes, processing the file with pdftex, the link is much more precise.  So, when
I want my output in pdf format it's better to use pdftex.  So, the problem of
metapost pictures now.  At:

 http://math.berkeley.edu/~vojta/tex/samp-p/mpost.html

I found the following code:

\input ifpdf.sty

\ifpdf
  \input supp-pdf
  \def\epsfbox#1{\hbox{\convertMPtoPDF{#1}{1}{1}}}
\else
  \input epsf
\fi

, that works fine but not with eplain.  In fact, this is test3.tex:

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\input eplain

\input ifpdf.sty

\ifpdf
  \input supp-pdf
  \def\epsfbox#1{\hbox{\convertMPtoPDF{#1}{1}{1}}}
\else
  \input epsf
\fi

hallo

$$\epsfbox{/home/rodolfo/math/figures.5}$$

\vfill\end
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%


.  If I do `tex test3' everything goes well.  Instead, if I do `pdftex test3' I
get the following error message:

$ pdftex test3
This is pdfTeXk, Version 3.141592-1.40.3 (Web2C 7.5.6)
 %&-line parsing enabled.
entering extended mode
(./test3.tex (./eplain.tex)
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/generic/oberdiek/ifpdf.sty) (./supp-pdf.tex
(./supp-mis.tex
loading : Context Support Macros / Miscellaneous (2004.10.26)
! Incomplete \iffalse; all text was ignored after line 160.
<inserted text> 
                \fi 
<to be read again> 
                   \newdimen 
l.163   \newdimen
                 \scratchdimen % 16
? h
A forbidden control sequence occurred in skipped text.
This kind of error happens when you say `\if...' and forget
the matching `\fi'. I've inserted a `\fi'; this might work.

? 


.  Why, and how to avoid that?

Thanks again for your help
Rodolfo