---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 23:07:36 -0500 (EST) From: hutch@psfc.mit.edu To: tetex@dbs.uni-hannover.de Subject: Bug in pdftex. Fixed by attached pdftex.ini In tetex-3... pdftex has a serious bug. Any plain tex file that uses \magnification gives incorrect text placement in pdf. This bug is present in the latest pdftex version 1.21a. It apparently was caused by the introduction of the new variables \pdfvoffset and \pdfhoffset. This bug was not present in older pdftex, e.g. version 3.14159-1.10b, which was part of tetex-2... A simple illustration of the problem is with the trivial file: \magnification \magstep3 %The following parindent and offset changes are not the cause of errors. %They are merely to illustrate them clearly by writing at top left. %Anything other than \magstep0 gives a placement error with pdftex 1.21a. \parindent 0pt \hoffset -1 truein \voffset -1 truein The top. \end With tex and xdvi, the words "The top." are placed at the immediate top left. With pdftex 1.21a and xpdf (or acroread) they are not. With earlier pdftex 1.10b (e.g.) they are. I had an extensive discussion on comp.text.tex with Heiko Oberdiek, most of which is at http://www.codecomments.com/Tex/message784423.html The gist of it is that backward compatibility with plain tex files is very important. As far as possible, it should be preserved transparently. Authors should not be required to hack their files in order for them to render the same in pdf as in dvi. Moreover there is a simple way to provide this compatibility. A reasonable way to fix the bug is to change pdftex.ini and hence pdftex.fmt. (The corresponding pdfetex files ought also to be fixed.) A proposed patched pdftex.ini file is attached. It consists simply of % Thomas Esser, 1998, 2004. public domain. \ifx\pdfoutput\undefined \else \ifx\pdfoutput\relax \else \input pdftexconfig \pdfoutput=1 \fi \fi \input plain \ifx\pdfoutput\undefined \else \ifx\pdfoutput\relax \else \catcode`@=11 \def\m@g{% \mag\count@ \hsize6.5truein\vsize8.9truein\dimen\footins8truein %These commands fix the pdf sizes to be in true units. \mag@fix\pdfhorigin \mag@fix\pdfvorigin \mag@fix\pdfpagewidth \mag@fix\pdfpageheight } \def\mag@fix#1{% #1=\expandafter\convert@truept\the#1\relax } \begingroup \catcode`P=12 \catcode`T=12 \lowercase{% \endgroup \def\convert@truept#1PT{% #1truept% }% }% \catcode`@=12 \fi \fi \dump \endinput I don't know who takes responsibility for pdftex.ini. But clearly this ought to be fixed for all distributions. I care most about tetex, because it is what I use. Thanks, Ian Hutchinson http://www.psfc.mit.edu/people/hutch/