[XeTeX] xdv2pdf vs xdvipdfmx

[Herbert Schulz]

On Jan 21, 2011, at 8:17 AM, Oleg Parashchenko wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> what is the state of xdv2pdf? Is it ok to use this driver in production
> environment, or are there any issues? What xdvipdfmx provides, what
> xdv2pdf can not do?
> 
> So far, I know that xdv2pdf works only under Mac OS X and can not load
> fonts directly from files. The first is ok for me, and the latter can be
> fixed. (Starting with 10.5, Mac OS X provides a font-from-file function.
> A test code does work under my 10.6.) And what about pdfsync
> functionality?
> 
> Thanks for any contributions!

Howdy,

If I had to guess I would say that xdv2pdf is dead and there will be no more work done on it. The xdvipdfmx back end is used on all platforms.

The pdfsync package has been superseded by synctex built into (e/xe/pdf)tex; you need to set --synctex=1 as an option to (e/xe/pdf)tex and have an editor and pdfviewer that are synctex aware. On the Mac I know TeXShop and TeXworks are synctex aware and the Skim viewer is also synctex aware. Probably are other editors that will work but I'm not sure what they are.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)