[XeTeX] The future of XeTeX

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 31.07.2012 um 01:19 schrieb Zdenek Wagner:

> Yes, I know. Similarly as XeTeX can set \pdfpageheight and
> \pdfpagewidth (or use \special{papersize=...}) there might be a
> similar \special for setting PDF version and compression but such
> \special's do not exist.

For very good reason! "\pdfminorversion" is not only some monadic number, it's also a guarantee that this document conforms to a particular standard. XeTeX cannot guarantee that this will be true in the future, the future when the XDV to PDF convertor will have finished its work. A lawyer or politician could nonetheless…

\pdfpageheight and \pdfpagewidth are alternatively set to allow the XDV to PDF convertor perform its job properly.

> It is more difficult to create PDF/X
> compliant file because I have to create XDV and then specify the PDF
> version when calling xdvipdfmx but pdftex can set it directly.

Pdftex is the creator of the PDF file. It can assure certain things easily.

> The same problem appears with LaTeX + dvips.

Correct! The standards to which the generated PDF file will comply are not controlled by LaTeX and not by the PS to PDF convertor but the programme used for the final step of PDF creation.


Just because you can fill a liquid into the tank of a car by using kind of a nozzle there is no guarantee that it will drive you from here to there when you empty your bowels in the tank using also kind of a nozzle…

Anyway, it would be nice if xdvipdfmx could be improved. (Although it's questionable whether it's worth when XeTeX has reached its end of life cycle and LuaTeX is taking over – without micro-typography that seemed to have started in ConTeXt…)

--
Greetings

  Pete

Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel, grasping and unintelligent.
				– H. L. Mencken