[XeTeX] xelatex and geometry

[Ulrike Fischer]

Am Wed, 26 Mar 2008 10:47:15 +0000 schrieb Jonathan Kew:

>> I'm used to call geometry almost always with the option dvips:
>>
>> \usepackage[dvips,...]{geometry}
>>
>> This works fine with latex + dvips, and it also works with pdflatex as
>> \Gm at checkdrivers corrects the driver.
>>
>> It would also work with xelatex if geometry.cfg for XeLaTeX (JK
>> 2006-06-07) wouldn't contain a \let\Gm at checkdrivers\relax and so the
>> \specials for dvips are not set.
> 
> Surely the "right" thing to do (short of changing geometry.sty itself  
> to eliminate the issue below) is *not* to give the [dvips] option  
> unless you're actually using dvips! By giving that option when you're  
> actually using pdflatex or xelatex, you are misleading the system.

No not really. Geometry is quite clever and resets the driver to pdftex
if it realize.  

So \usepackage[<dvidriver>]{geometry} is a short and convenient way for
\ifpdf
\usepackage{geometry}
\else
\usepackage[<dvidriver>]{geometry}
\fi

which is tiresome and redundant as geometry can find out if pdflatex is
running itself. 

And so -- if possible -- I would like to avoid to have to write

\ifxetex
\usepackage{geometry}
\else
\usepackage[<dvidriver>]{geometry}
\fi


> 
>>
>> So I would suggest to use
>>
>> \@ifundefined{XeTeXversion}{}{%
>> \def\pdfoutput{1}%
>> }
> 
> That would almost certainly lead to breakage when other packages try  
> to check for pdfTeX-specific functionality by looking at \pdfoutput.

Yes you are right. That is a bit dangerous. So what if you simply delete
the pdfoutput test from checkdrivers:

\@ifundefined{XeTeXversion}{}{%
 \def\Gm at checkdrivers{%
  \ifx\pdfpagewidth\@undefined\else
    %\ifnum\pdfoutput=\@ne
      \Gm at setdriver{pdftex}%
    %\fi
  \fi
  \ifx\VTeXversion\@undefined\else
    \ifnum\OpMode=\@ne
      \Gm at setdriver{vtex}%
    \else
      \ifnum\OpMode=\tw@
        \Gm at setdriver{vtex}%
      \fi
    \fi
  \fi
  \ifx\Gm at driver\Gm at dvips
    \Gm at specialtrue
  \else
    \ifx\Gm at driver\Gm at dvipdfm
       \Gm at specialtrue
    \fi
  \fi}}

\endinput 

-- 
Ulrike Fischer