[Mac OS X TeX] Plain TeX and PDF figures

[Bruno Voisin]

> is there a macro package for including PDF files into Plain TeX? I need 
> nothing fancy, something very basic should do fine for me. Of course, I 
> know about LaTeX packages, but this is not what I want...

I'm not aware of a macro package, but the following code should work 
(for including a file name.pdf, the same works with JPEG):

\pdfximage{name.pdf}\pdfrefximage\pdflastximage

It might be safer to put everything in a \hbox (don't ask me anything 
about the syntax above, it appears unnecessarily complicated to me, but 
it works).

Things get sexier when you want to set the size of the image, or when 
you want to include the image at its natural size while your plain TeX 
document uses \magnification=\magstep1 or similar. That's what I had to 
do to make it work, for example:

\newbox\logobox \newdimen\logowidth
\setbox\logobox=\hbox{\pdfximage{logolegi.jpg}%
    \pdfrefximage\pdflastximage}
  \logowidth=\wd\logobox
  \divide\logowidth by\mag
  \multiply\logowidth by1000
  \setbox\logobox=\hbox{\pdfximage width\logowidth{logolegi.jpg}%
    \pdfrefximage\pdflastximage}
\copy\logobox

More information is available from pdfTeX documentation, in 
/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf/doc/pdftex/base. See pdftexman.pdf and the 
extensively documented samplepdf.tex.

ConTeXt might make it simple, but I know nothing about it, and hey! it's 
not plain TeX.

Hope this helps,

Bruno Voisin


-----------------------------------------------------------------
To UNSUBSCRIBE, send email to <info at email.esm.psu.edu> with
"unsubscribe macosx-tex" (no quotes) in the body.
For additional HELP, send email to <info at email.esm.psu.edu> with
"help" (no quotes) in the body.
This list is not moderated, and I am not responsible for
messages posted by third parties.
-----------------------------------------------------------------