[tex-live] dvipdfmx: Two (related) special queries

[Zdenek Wagner]

Ho Jiseph,

I do not think that xdvipdfmx supports \special{pdf: literal ... }. I use
\special{pdf: code ... }. You can look into zwpagelayout.sty, line 670 and
below where I implement black overprint for pdftex, xetex (=xdvipdfmx), and
dvips.


Zdeněk Wagner
http://ttsm.icpf.cas.cz/team/wagner.shtml
http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz

2017-07-03 10:05 GMT+02:00 Joseph Wright <joseph.wright at morningstar2.co.uk>:

> Hello all,
>
> I'm looking at reproducing some effects achievable using pdfTeX in
> direct PDF output mode when in DVI mode, specifically when targetting
> dvipdfmx. Normally this is relatively simple as specials are used
> directly by a 'TeX-aware' tool.
>
> The first issue is the equivalent of "\pdfliteral direct{...}". That
> should be \special{pdf:literal direct ...}/\special{pdf:code ...}.
> However, if one tries to do that to put a comment in the PDF stream (see
> below) it fails. For example, with pdfTeX we can do
>
>     \pdfcompresslevel=0 %
>     \begin{document}
>     Hello
>     \makeatletter
>     \pdfliteral direct{\@percentchar HELLO}
>     \end{document}
>
> and get in the PDF stream
>
>     stream
>     BT
>     /F8 9.9626 Tf 148.712 707.125 Td [(Hello)]TJ
>     %HELLO
>      154.421 -567.87 Td [(1)]TJ
>     ET
>
> but trying the dvipdfmx equivalent
>
>     \documentclass{article}
>     \begin{document}
>     Hello
>     \makeatletter
>     \special{pdf:literal direct \@percentchar HELLO}
>     \end{document}
>
> nothing happens. I must be missing something obvious!
>
> The second query is about the compress level. I can set that at the
> dvipdfmx level using the -z0 switch. However, I'm not entirely clear if
> that is the same as applying
>
>     \pdfcompresslevel=0
>     \pdfobjcompresslevel=0
>
> in pdfTeX. There's also normally a \special form of support for other
> ideas that match up between the routes, for example for papersize. Am I
> missing one here? (It would be particularly handy for xdvipdfmx, where
> one normally doesn't run the driver directly.)
>
> Joseph
>
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