# [NTG-pdftex] [tex-live] \pdffontattr in pdftex-1.40.0-rc4

Reinhard Kotucha reinhard.kotucha at web.de
Tue Jan 2 01:09:10 CET 2007

>>>>> "Hartmut" == Hartmut Henkel <hartmut_henkel at gmx.de> writes:

> On Thu, 28 Dec 2006, Hartmut Henkel wrote:
>> On Wed, 27 Dec 2006, Reinhard Kotucha wrote:
>>
>> > I'm trying to run the vntex testfiles with the current pdftex >
>> release recently uploaded to the TeXLive repository by Martin.
>> >
>> > Can anybody tell me what the warnings mean?
>> >
>> > pdfTeX warning (\pdffontattr): font \^^@ has conflicting
>> attributes

Please excuse me that I didn't respond earlier but I had been very
confused that I have two different versions of pdfTeX on my system.

I found out that the x86_64-linux binaries on the test image did not
provide the latest pdftex release.  Hence I uploaded new binaries for
this platform last night.

> is this a nullfont? how does one get it?

No idea, I'm not a PDF expert, but it seems to have something to do
with cmap.sty.

> Here is the try of a patch, which also shows what happens with the
> above file. Reinhard, does it remove the warnings in your case?

Yes, after I applied your patch, the warnings don't appear any more.

Regarding the manual:
the TeXLive repository and many thanks to Pawel for maintaining it.

However, there are a few issues which bother me.  They are not so
important that it makes sense to fix them immediately.  It would be
nice if things can be improved in next year's release.

1. In the screen version of the manual (pdftex-s.pdf) the text is
surrounded by a dark blue box.  The horizontal distance between the
text and the box is *much* too small.  The manual makes use of
character protrusion and in this case it is not desirable to have
verical structures close to the text.  The distance between the
text and the box should be at least 2em.

2. The title pages of the versions which are intended for printing are
lacking a binding margin.  A simple fix would be to increase all
margins and use a smaller font.

3. The manual still uses the URW fonts with the broken "T" and "D".
It would be nice if future versions will use Jacko's fonts instead,
TeX-Gyre Pagella in this case.

4. The title "The pdfTeX user manual" is typeset in a very huge font.
This consumes a lot of ink.  Maybe something like this is more
desirable:
__________________________________________________________________
\font\x=pplr8r at 80pt
\setbox0\hbox to0pt{\x Hello world!\hss}\ht0=0pt \dp0=0pt
\offinterlineskip
\pdfsave
\pdfliteral{.8 g}\copy0
\pdfliteral{1 Tr 1.2 w 0 g}\box0
\pdfrestore\bye
__________________________________________________________________

I get a warning message when I compile the file but I think that it
shows my idea, though.  Maybe Hans has higher level macros in
Context already which provide a similar result.

BTW., the above code uses new pdftex features (\pdfsave \pdfrestore).
I must admit that I didn't read the manual before I used them (maybe I
should).  I got the information from Martin's announcement.  I doubt
that Martin's announcements can be a replacement for a real user
manual.  But they are extremely good and I've never seen such useful
announcements anywhere else.

Regards,
Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha			              Phone: +49-511-4592165
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