[XeTeX] Using tikz with plain XeTeX

[Joseph Wright]

On 13/05/2017 11:53, John Was wrote:
> Dear All
> 
> Apologies if this is the wrong list (but I’ve always found participants here very helpful!).
> 
> I have been sent some tikz code for diagrams to be included in a forthcoming article.  The author uses a version of LaTeX but tikz should work OK in plain (Xe)TeX, I think – though I haven’t tried it for a number of years.  Oddly enough, when I invoke tikz with:
> 
> \input tikz
> 
> the package does load, and a simple drawing works:
> 
> \tikzpicture
>     \path[draw=red] (0,0) -- (1,1) -- (2,1) circle (10pt);
> \endtikzpicture
> 
> (pasted from a stackexchange discussion of a different matter).
> 
> BUT, before the drawing I get six lines of info in the output (the sort of thing I’d expect in the log), viz.:
> 
> pgfrcs[2010/10/25 v2.10 (rcs-revision 1.24)]
> pgf[2008/01/15 (rcs-revision 1.10)]
> pgfsys[2010/06/30 v2.10 (rcs-revision 1.37)]
> pgfcore[2010/04/11 v2.10 (rcs-revision 1.7)]
> pgffor[2010/03/23 v2.10 (rcs-revision 1.18)]
> tikz[2010/10/13 v2.10 (rcs-revision 1.76)]
> 
> It also messes up my crop marks and running headlines in subsequent pages, but I suspect that could be rectified by invoking other \inputs in a different order (I include edmac and pstricks at the start).  I can manage without tikz if necessary (the worst-case scenario would be redrawing with pstricks), but it would be good to know at least that I can use tikz in future without these unwanted half-dozen lines coming into the output.  It’s a powerful package that I’ve always meant to learn.
> 
> Best
> 
> 
> John

TikZ is certainly loadable with plain. Could you give more details of
your TeX system or perhaps a log for the simple file

    \input tikz
    \tikzpicture
        \path[draw=red] (0,0) -- (1,1) -- (2,1) circle (10pt);
    \endtikzpicture
    \bye

I get the 'expected' output with both TL'16 final and TL'17 pretesting.

Joseph