pdfTeX

PdfTeX is an extension of the typesetting program TeX, PDF files can be generated with the of TeX, LaTeX and ConTeXt sources directly. It was originally developed at the University of Brno Hàn Thế Thành as part of his PhD project.

The importance of pdfTeX results mainly from the fact that PDF has increasingly replaced the "old" TeX output formats DVI and PostScript.

PdfTeX is in the newer TeX distributions ( TeX Live and builds on it MacTeX, MiKTeX ) contain and where it is used as the default TeX engine. The inclusion of pdfTeX in the TeX distribution teTeX 1.0 was for the dissemination of the system is of great importance.

History

The idea for this TeX extension emerged in the early 1990s, when Jiří Zlatuška and Phil Taylor discussed their ideas for further development of TeX with Donald E. Knuth at Stanford. As Knuth later came to Brno University to receive an honorary doctorate from the local computer science faculty, there were further encouraging talks, this time with Hàn Thế Thành. Other important contributions to the development of pdfTeX submitted by Pavel Janik, Heiko Oberdiek, Jiri Osoba, Ricardo Sanchez Carmenes, Robert Plain and Martin Schröder.

PdfTeX based on the TeX sources and Web2c. Since version 1.40, the ε - TeX sources in pdfTeX are included.

The development of pdfTeX is as good as finished. Errors should only be cleaned up until the release of version 1.50.0. As the successor of pdfTeX applies LuaTeX.

Features of pdfTeX

The main difference between TeX and pdfTeX is the creation of PDF files. The output format of TeX DVI. In order to derive generate PDF files for prepress, further work must be done by a driver. This step is omitted when using pdfTeX, because so the PDF can be generated directly.

This makes it possible to create PDF-specific features such as hypertext references and a table of contents by LaTeX supplementary packages like hyperref especially immediately. Also, PDF forms can be generated.

In return work packages that are based on the conversion from DVI to PostScript, with pdfTeX not (especially PSTricks ). This is especially true for the embedding of PostScript graphics. These must be converted to a format that can be processed directly by pdfTeX (PNG, JPEG, JBIG2 or PDF) before. As an alternative to generating graphics with LaTeX system PGF / TikZ was developed.

Because pdfTeX contains the TeX sources, it is also possible to use a DVI output directly to produce with pdfTeX. They will be identical to that of TeX, provided the extensions microtypographic pdfTeX have not been used.

Mikrotypographische extensions

The two most important skills of pdfTeX are in microtypographic area. On the one hand the so-called protruding was implemented ( the optical margin alignment, and margin kerning or hanging punctuation called ), on the other hand there are the so-called font weight change ( font expansion), which works by Hermann Zapf to be implemented, the aim of which was to create a uniform gray value of the to cause pressure side. For the LaTeX package simplifies microtype, which also supports the successor system LuaTeX, the access to these features.

Support for TrueType and Type 1 fonts

In addition, pdfTeX provides native support of TrueType and Type 1 fonts that can be embedded directly in PDF files. OpenType fonts can be used, however, limited. Therefore successor systems such LuaTeX and XeTeX have been developed that offer a pure unicode- based production process for LaTeX sources.

Use

In order to process LaTeX source code, the program can be called directly pdflatex. For ConTeXt documents pdfTeX is used when calling texexec default.

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