[XeTeX] "Options for all fonts" : colo[u]r, and the transparency byte

[Philip TAYLOR (Webmaster, Ret'd)]

Jonathan Kew wrote:
>
> Phil, the issue you're having is that the xetex option to specify transparency as part of the font colour does not use \special{} commands, it's an extra font property that is only supported by the (Mac-only, not-really-supported) xdv2pdf driver. Currently, at least, the xdvipdfmx driver - which is your only option on non-Mac systems - doesn't implement this.
>
> On the other hand, it is *also* possible to specify transparency via PDF \special{}s. That's what I presume TikZ does, and apparently it works with xdvipdfmx. So you could do the same thing for text in plain xetex by writing the appropriate \special{} commands in your document. (But no, I don't know any details of exactly how to do that - sorry!)
>    

OK, thank you for the explanation.  But may I ask a couple of
questions, without wishing to seem unreasonable ?  Given that
xdvipdfmx /is /now the default driver for XeTeX, and given that
the xdv2pdf driver is both Mac-only and "not really supported",
would it not be possible for you to enhance XeTeX to take advantage
of the features that xdvipdfmx offers and thus emit the necessary
PDF \specials when transparency is called for in the font declaration ?

As a work-around, I am more than happy to insert the \specials
by hand, but how do I find them ?  There is neither a DVI file on
which to launch DVItype, nor does there appear to be a PDF
equivalent called PDFtype.

** Phil.



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