[tex-live] (TeXLive 2008) Fix for small dvipdfm(1) configuration file error

[John Murdie]

Karl Berry wrote on Fri Dec 5 00:40:46 CET 2008:
> Hi John,
>             < V 2
>             ---
>             > V 3
> 
> Thanks.  For dvipdfmx, we have V 4.  Do you know of some reason we
> should not use 4 for dvipdfm too?  I'll change it to that barring advice
> to the contrary.  (Those PDF version "errors" are so uselessly painful.)

I've no reason to think that V 4 won't do - the value just needs to be
consistent, of course. Thanks!

>     Some people here still use latex(1) and dvips(1)/ps2pdf(1) or dvipdfm(1)
> 
> FYI, I suggest using dvipdfmx (maintained) instead of dvipdfm
> (unmaintained).
> 
>     irksome to have manually to close and reopen the PDF file
> 
> "irksome" is an understatement!  FWIW, on Windows, I am told that Sumatra
> PDF can reload documents.  http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/
> 
> On Unix-based platforms, xpdf, evince, and virtually all PDF readers
> other than Adobe's can reload.

Thanks for the reminder - we supply xpdf and evince, but users will
fasten on to Adobe Acrobat Reader! (Which was outrageously buggy with
regard to printing in the previous version - version 7, though evince(1)
was also disgustingly bad for printing until fairly recently.) I've long
used xpdf(1), myself.

>     but I would like to wean users off latex(1) and DVI and onto pdflatex(1)
> 
> There are other reasons to use latex instead of pdflatex -- pstricks is
> one (though see the auto-pst-pdf package), eps figures (when conversion
> is undesirable, as the AMS and other publishers suggest) is another.

Yes, PSTricks is still the greatest reason given by users here why they
stay with dvips(1) etc. Printing dvips(1) output landscape is something
else that never seems to be straightforward for them - either they don't
specify 'dvips -t landscape' and then get into difficulties trying to
postprocess the output, or they do both!

> Best,
> Karl

Thanks,

John A. Murdie