[XeTeX] pdfpages?

[Andreas Matthias]

Peter Dyballa wrote:

> Am 03.11.2007 um 02:26 schrieb Andreas Matthias:
> 
>> Ok. So it is not a subset but then what's the difference between
>>   \usepackage[dvipdfm]{graphicx}
>> and
>>   \usepackage[xetex]{graphicx}?
> 
> In the first case first
> 
> 	File: dvipdfm.def 1999/9/6 vx.x Driver-dependant file
> 
> is loaded, then
> 
> 	File: xetex.def 2006/08/10 v0.92 LaTeX color/graphics driver for  
> XeTeX (RRM, mo d. JK)
> 
> is loaded.

Really? Not here. [dvipdfm] does not load xetex.def.

> In the latter case only xetex.def is loaded.
> 
>> When do you use which graphics' driver?
>> 
> 
> Until recently I was using \usepackage[dvipdfm]{graphicx}. Since I  
> looked into the recent version of xetex.def I think I could easily use
> 
> 	\usepackage{graphicx}
> 
> as with pdfTeX.

AFAICS this is the way it should be. And probably the recommended way.

> Xetex.def seems to contain what dvipdfm.def provides.

Yeah, exactly. That's why I was talking about dvipdfm.def being a
subset of xetex.def. And if this is true there should be no reason to
load dvipdfm.def at all; one could always load xetex.def.
Xetex.def has some extensions to dvipdfm.def:

E.g. \includegraphics[page=2]{dummy.pdf} only works with xetex.def.

To get back to the original problem. Pdfpages requires amongst other
thing this very `page' option. So graphicx.sty must be loaded with
xetex.def. But the original poster loaded TikZ with
    \documentclass[dvipdfm]{...}
    \usepackage{tikz}
which loads graphicx.sty with dvipdfm.def. And I think that this
way to load tikz.sty is just a poor man's solution because a real
xetex driver for TikZ is missing. Now, if dvipdfm.def is just
a subset of xetex.def it is probably trivial to write a xetex
driver for TikZ: just copy the dvipdfm driver. But before thinking
about a TikZ driver I wanted to make sure that there are no problems
on the graphics' driver side, viz: Is it save to replace 
\usepackage[dvipdfm]{graphicx} with
\usepackage[xetex]{graphicx}?


If it is that easy as I think it is, I am pretty sure that Till Tantau
will provide a real xetex driver for TikZ, namely `pgfsys-xetex.def'.
But before asking him I wanted to make sure that no problems on the
graphicx' driver side arise.


Ciao
Andreas