[tex-live] what is pdfcolor.tex

jfbu jfbu at free.fr
Sun Mar 12 16:43:08 CET 2017


Hi,

there is 

/usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/tex/generic/pdftex/pdfcolor.tex

I am wondering what this file serves for, it defines a bunch
of colours but also ends in definitions of \makefootline
and \makeheadline (also defined by Plain TeX) and sets \pdfoutput to 1,
defines a \setcolor macro, a \pdfsetcolor one, ...

... it looks more like some documentation file, or example file, but
is not in the doc/ tree.

none of the drivers at /usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/tex/latex/graphics
use it, and neither do those at /usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/tex/latex/graphics-def

actually, the file looks like a Plain pdfTeX dedicated file,

but it is loaded in some LaTeX package I help maintaining and it
seems to have been there for years for some forgotten reasons,
so any help about its purpose will be appreciated. I expect that
the more modern way is to load color package with suitable options
or xcolor package, to have various colour names defined. (the CMYK
color space is seemingly the topic of pdfcolor.tex and it bypasses
the higher level color package calls)

As the said LaTeX package is trying to support xelatex, lualatex, platex,
I would be happy to get rid of that dependency, which is wrapped
in strange conditionals there,

Jean-François


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