[XeTeX] TiKZ, XeTeX, semitransparent - Acrobat draws then erases

[Axel E. Retif]

On  9 May, 2008, at 14:43, Jonathan Kew wrote:

> On 9 May 2008, at 7:25 pm, Matthew Leingang wrote:
>
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> I had a problem with a beamer presentation typeset with xelatex and
>> viewed with the Acrobat Reader.

[...]

>> I worked it down considerably to the following minimal example:

[...]

>> \draw[semitransparent] (0,0) -- (1,0) node[opaque] {$z$};

[...]

> Does this work with latex->dvi->dvipdfmx? My guess is that tikz's
> "semitransparent" feature is generating PDF code designed to work in
> conjunction with pdftex, and won't work with other output drivers.
>
> If it works reliably with latex+dvipdfmx, then we should try to
> establish what's different in the xelatex case.

No, it doesn't ---I tried with pdfTeX -> TeXniscope, and TeXniscope  
even quits at the second try. The problem seems to be with the  
combination of transparency and opaqueness; the example in PGF  
manual, p. 205 (from CVS) illustrates this:

\documentclass{article}
%\def\pgfsysdriver{pgfsys-xetex.def}%% <- comment for pdfLaTeX;
\usepackage{tikz}                   %%    uncomment for XeLaTeX
\begin{document}
Is there a picture here? \tikz{\fill[red] (0,0) rectangle (1,0.5);
\fill[semitransparent] (0.5,0) rectangle (1.5,0.25) node[opaque] {$z$};}
\end{document}

Typeset with pdfLaTeX and you get the expected result; typeset with  
XeLaTeX and you'll see the rectangle is *not* opaque. Delete `` node 
[opaque] {$z$} '' and you get the same output. Delete just ``  
[opaque] '' and you get the same output, but the node is  
semitransparent also.

But, as I say above, the problem is with dvipdfmx.

Best,

Axel