Many thanks, Reinhard : Thanh has sent me a copy of "pdfup.sty", which I think does much the same thing. ** Phil. -------- Reinhard Kotucha wrote:

Philip TAYLOR (Ret'd) writes:

...

Dear PdfTeX team -- I do not know if this is a PdfTeX question, so please forgive me if it is not.

Hi Phil, it's a quite general question, no need to ask the developers.

...

I am generating two-column A5 pages using PdfLaTeX; is there any straightforward way to persuade PdfLaTeX to output two complete pages side by side on one A4 landscape page ?

There is a very powerful LaTeX package pdfpages.sty which allows you to post process pdf files.

Regards, Reinhard

Ah, understood ! -------- The Thanh Han wrote:

slight correction: I only sent Phil via private email an example how to use pdfpages. The credit belongs to the author of pdfpages.

Thanh

2008/5/2 Hartmut Henkel :

is there really not any package that would collect two pages right in the output routine?

Try macros/generic/midnight/quire.tex Best Martin

Hartmut Henkel writes:

On Thu, 1 May 2008, Reinhard Kotucha wrote:

...

There is a very powerful LaTeX package pdfpages.sty which allows you to post process pdf files.

is there really not any package that would collect two pages right in the output routine?

Hi Hartmut, given that Phil wrote his document in plain TeX, he would certainly be able to write such an output routine himself. I'm in Poland now and can't look into the TeXbook ATM, but I'm sure it gives some hints. He wrote his text in LaTeX and the LaTeX output routine is so complex that it dosn't make much fun to change it. The advantage of changing the output routine is that hyperlinks are preserved. In most cases this is not necessary and the advantage of pdfpages is that it allows you to post-process arbitrary PDF files, independent of the program which created them. This is an invaluable feature of pdfpages. Regards, Reinhard -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reinhard Kotucha Phone: +49-511-3373112 Marschnerstr. 25 D-30167 Hannover mailto:reinhard.kotucha@web.de ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Microsoft isn't the answer. Microsoft is the question, and the answer is NO. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hartmut Henkel writes:

On Thu, 1 May 2008, Reinhard Kotucha wrote:

...

There is a very powerful LaTeX package pdfpages.sty which allows you to post process pdf files.

is there really not any package that would collect two pages right in the output routine?

Hi Hartmut, given that Phil wrote his document in plain TeX, he would certainly be able to write such an output routine himself. I'm in Poland now and can't look into the TeXbook ATM, but I'm sure it gives some hints. He wrote his text in LaTeX and the LaTeX output routine is so complex that it dosn't make much fun to change it. The advantage of changing the output routine is that hyperlinks are preserved. In most cases this is not necessary and the advantage of pdfpages is that it allows you to post-process arbitrary PDF files, independent of the program which created them. This is an invaluable feature of pdfpages. Regards, Reinhard -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reinhard Kotucha Phone: +49-511-3373112 Marschnerstr. 25 D-30167 Hannover mailto:reinhard.kotucha@web.de ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Microsoft isn't the answer. Microsoft is the question, and the answer is NO. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

My thanks to all who have contributed to this thread (Thanh, Reinhard, Martin, Hartmut, et al). To clarify, Reinhard is quite right : my LaTeX expertise is so non-existent that I didn't consider for one second doing what would have been 2nd-nature had I been working in Plain : hack the o/p routine. But my reason for sending the message to the PdfTeX developers was that PdfTeX is its own driver, and as drivers frequently provide n-up capability, it seemed by no means impossible that PdfTeX might do the same. As it does not, and as the hyperlinks are essential (the TOC refers to the start of each chapter), I will need a solution that preserves these. I have not yet had time to investigate Pdfpages or Quire, but both look interesting and I will report back once I know whether either or both preserver hyperlinks. As PdfTeX does /not/ provide n-up capability inately, would it be possible to request this for consideration as a future enhancement ? ** Phil.