[OS X TeX] dvipdfmx

[Jin-Hwan Cho]

On Feb 8, 2007, at 11:34 PM, Gerben Wierda wrote:

> simpdftex (formerly altpdftex) was created to give a pdftex-like
> single-command interface to the tex->DVI->dvips->PS->ps2pdf->PDF  
> route.
> The use of tex->dvips however is I think deprecated (because DVI  
> itself is
> deprecated) and the main use (as far as I can see) is so older  
> projects
> depending on PS-trickery still work. I see no other advantage of  
> using DVI
> as an intermediate format.

I understand because you can live in the world of 8 bit characters.  
In fact,
pdfTeX is nothing but a TeX implementation supporting 8-bits only. Have
you ever used 16-bit TeX extensions including Omega, pTeX, and XeTeX.

Actually I am so interested in the simplicity of the DVI format. You  
may find
what I am doing with DVI in the upcoming PracTeX journal.

Anyway, DVI is still useful to make a big document. In the world of  
Mac OS X
we have no problem in dealing with PDF. But PDF is still heavy in other
platforms.

While I'm writing this reply, Janathan wrote that "dvipdfmx tends to  
produce
much more compact PDF files than pdftex". He is right. In fact,  
dvipdfmx has
more powerful routine for font manipulation so that the reduced file  
size
comes from the compression rate of fonts.

> I have been asked to add dvipdfmx-compatibility to simpdftex (formerly
> altpdftex). I would be happy to do so, but I would like to know  
> what the
> advantages are of using dvipdfmx instead of pdftex, before I commit  
> time
> and effort.

I do not mind which direction you decide. But, still many CJK (Chinese,
Japanese, Korean) people want to have simpdftex supporting DVIPDFM(x).

Always appreciate your wonderful work.

Best, ChoF. 

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