[OS X TeX] PDF sync with TeXShop & XeLaTeX

[Jonathan Kew]

On 15 Feb 2006, at 1:05 pm, Bruno Voisin wrote:

> Le 15 févr. 06 à 12:36, Paul Vickers a écrit :
>
>> Trying again as a new thread:
>>
>> I love the pdf sync feature of TeXShop and use it a lot. However,  
>> I have found it doesn't seem to work when using XeLaTeX as the  
>> engine rather than LaTeX. Is there something I'm missing?
>
> As far as I understood not using it myself, the package pdfsync.sty  
> works by inserting certain tags in TeX's PDF output (using pdfTeX,  
> or TeX + dvips + Ghostscript). Depending on how XeTeX creates its  
> PDF output (using actually xetex + xdv2pdf), these tags may or may  
> not work with it.

I believe the mechanism is slightly different (though the conclusion  
is similar): if I remember right, pdfsync.sty actually writes an  
auxiliary file with the sync information. But in order to do this, it  
needs to know where it is on the page while executing a \write  
command; and standard TeX doesn't know this. So I assume it is using  
a pdfTeX extension, and therefore won't work with XeTeX.

In theory, a technically-inclined user could create a XeTeX  
equivalent, by modifying pdfsync.sty to write \special commands with  
the sync data, and modifying xdv2pdf_mergemarks (a Perl script that  
post-processes the output) to read this and create the pdfsync file  
that TeXShop expects. But I'm not going to attempt this myself, as  
the little time I can spend on XeTeX-related development is going  
into other features....

> You might have more luck directing your question to the XeTeX  
> mailing list <http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex>, though I  
> think Jonathan Kew, the developer of XeTeX, monitors the OS X TeX  
> list also very closely.

Not always closely, though I do try to notice if XeTeX issues come  
up. It's always nice if someone answers them for me, though! :)

> Or have I misunderstood your question, and are you speaking of  
> TeXShop's separate PDF synchronization function based on Tiger's  
> PDF searching abilities, or to the combination of both, as allowed  
> by TeXShop in Preferences > Misc > Sync Method?

The built-in "Search" sync method has worked reasonably well for me  
(it can be a bit fussy, depending on the nature of your text). I  
don't use pdfsync.sty (see above).

JK


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