[tex-live] TL2004: adding a map to pdftex only

Olaf Weber olaf at infovore.xs4all.nl
Wed Oct 20 08:55:33 CEST 2004


Fabrice Popineau writes:

>> Still, this is far from ideal because it requires a format dump to
>> work. Whereas with the config system before it was done during a normal
>> run. It was even possible to have a pdftex.cfg in a project directory.

> This is the real nightmare: you have a pdftex.cfg in your current directory
> and you don't understand why your 'default' pdftex behaviour doesn't apply. 
> And what if you 'lose' the pdftex.cfg, when giving the .tex files to someone
> else for example and you forget to add the pdftex.cfg file.

> At some point, you will have to give your whole tex distribution to make
> sure the document is compiled somewhere else (texmf.cnf, updmap.cfg,
> pdftex.cfg, whatelse ? Ah ! The .tex files sure ;-) )

> Maybe I'm completely off, but from what I read, I'm convinced that having
> the font specification stated in the document itself is a Good Thing (tm),
> at least as good as it is to state the encoding used.

One thing that helps gathering the files used in a job is the filename
recorder (the -recorder option).

For the general point, I agree with Fabrice.  The goal really should
be that (say) pdfetex.fmt is the same everywhere, and that additional
fonts etc being used are somehow made explicit in the .tex input
files.

Otherwise, you endanger one of the strong points of TeX, which is the
ability to replicate your typesetting.  And this not just when handing
the input files to someone else, but even when handing them to
yourself, half a year later.

-- 
Olaf Weber

               (This space left blank for technical reasons.)



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