[XeTeX] XeTeXpdffile media box etc

[Paul Isambert]

Selon Will Robertson <wspr81 at gmail.com>:

> Hi,
>
> Thanks Paul and William for the useful info. Another clarification:
>
> > Crop, Bleed and Trim are standard printing terms and the usage reflects
> > that. Media is used to describe the underlying page size to which one
> > would likely be printing the file and art is what one wants people to
> > see.
>
> And how do these behave? In all cases, is the PDF cropped to whichever
> bounding box is specified? Or do they just relate to the alignment of
> the inserted box? Or does it vary between them?

The pdfTeX manual states:

"one may also decide in the pdf image case, which page box of the image is to be
treated as a final bounding box."

I guess XeTeX works in the same way. So, for instance, you can include a page
with printer's marks (if you use the media box) or just some meaningful content
(if you use the art box). Anyway people likely to use the option probably know
what those boxes are, so stating that the mentioned box will be the bounding box
is enough, isn't it?

In any case, you can still produce a file with pdfTeX and specify the boxes with
different values:

\pdfpagesattr{
  /CropBox [llx lly urx ury]
  /MediaBox ...
  ...
}

where llx/lly = lower-left x/y and urx/ury = upper-left x/y, only numbers,
expressing dimensions in Postscript points (by default).

Then include the file in another one and try changing the option.

Best,
Paul