[tex-k] dvips possible-bug/feature-request

[Michael Zedler]

Not 100% up-to-date...

hft190:~/Documents zedler$ pdfinfo problem.pdf
Title:          gr.eps
Subject:        gnuplot plot
Keywords:
Author:         root
Creator:        gnuplot 4.2 patchlevel 0
Producer:       Acrobat Distiller 7.0.5 for Macintosh
CreationDate:   Thu Mar  8 09:11:13 2007
ModDate:        Thu Mar  8 18:16:57 2007
Tagged:         no
Pages:          1
Encrypted:      no
Page size:      612 x 792 pts (letter)
File size:      10970 bytes
Optimized:      yes
PDF version:    1.4

Michael

Jonathan Kew schrieb:
> Before anyone digs too deep into dvips, consider that this may actually 
> be a ps2pdf (Ghostscript) bug.
> 
> I tried the example given, and saw the problem as described. But using 
> (an old version of) Adobe Distiller instead of GS to convert the .ps to 
> .pdf, the problem does not occur; therefore, it seems that GS is 
> behaving differently from Adobe Distiller. It would be good for someone 
> knowledgeable in this area to carefully review the PostScript and 
> pdfmark specifications to see what the "proper" behavior should be.
> 
> "Tweaking" dvips to avoid this issue is non-trivial, given that the 
> pdfmark commands might be constructed by arbitrary PostScript code in 
> the included graphics; recognizing and skipping this automatically 
> requires, in the general case, a full PostScript interpreter in the driver.
> 
> If someone has an up-to-date version of Adobe Distiller and can test 
> with that, it would be interesting to know what happens.
> 
> JK
> 
> On 8 Mar 2007, at 8:41 am, gual News wrote:
> 
>> To whom it may concern:
>>
>> There is a problem with pdf files metainformation that I think might 
>> be fixed in dvips (and, unfortunately, I don't know how to do it).
>> I reported this in the "comp.text.tex" newsgroup ( 
>> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.text.tex/browse_thread/thread/946ed6e0d03d1ecd/21b4721c249abeff#21b4721c249abeff 
>> ), and it was formerly reported by somebody else in the 
>> "comp.graphics.apps.gnuplot" group, but I am filing it here as a "bug 
>> report," though it might be more properly called a "feature request."
>> With the last gnuplot (4.2.0), when using the eps terminal (e.g. "set 
>> term post eps", and I presume any postscript terminal) in order to 
>> generate eps files to be included in a TeX document via the graphicx 
>> macros, the "pdfmark" information included in those eps files takes 
>> precedence over the pdfmark information generated by hyperref (I 
>> presume because it appears later in the file) when using latex + dvips 
>> + ps2pdf. I presume this might be called a dvips bug, or at least it 
>> might be fixed in dvips. When using "epstopdf + pdflatex" or "latex + 
>> dvipdfmx" the problem does not appear. Another contributor in " 
>> comp.text.tex" confirmed that, when including eps files created by a 
>> different procedure but containing metainformation, he encountered the 
>> same problem.
>> The problem is easy to reproduce, but so you may check it, I attach 
>> here 3 files:
>> (1) "gr.gp", a gnuplot script file.
>> (2) "gr.eps", the resulting eps file.
>> (3) "problem.tex", the LaTeX that gives rise to the problem.
>> I process " problem.tex" with latex (or pdflatex --output-format=dvi), 
>> then dvips (with or without -z), and finally ps2pdf. Then "pdfinfo 
>> problem.pdf" yields:
>> Title:          gr.eps
>> Subject:        gnuplot plot
>> Keywords:
>> Author:         root
>> Creator:        gnuplot 4.2 patchlevel 0
>> Producer:       dvips + AFPL Ghostscript 8.54
>> CreationDate:   Thu Mar  8 09:11:13 2007
>> ModDate:        Thu Mar  8 09:33:40 2007
>> Tagged:         no
>> Pages:          1
>> Encrypted:      no
>> Page size:      612 x 792 pts (letter)
>> File size:      6805 bytes
>> Optimized:      no
>> PDF version:    1.4
>> That is, the author and title metainformation is taken from " gr.eps" 
>> rather than the hyperref settings. Just looking at "problem.ps", one 
>> may see that it has both "pdfmark" settings, so ps2pdf just takes the 
>> last one it encounters. I presume one might tweak dvips to reproduce 
>> only the hyperref information in this case, or rather to ignore the 
>> metainformation coming from the included graphics files.
>> Thanks for your help.
>> Best regards,
>> Gual
>> <gr.gp>
>> <gr.eps>
>> <problem.tex>
> 
>