Not sure this is a programming question, but we use LaTeX for all our API documentation and user documentation, so I hope it will go through.
Can someone please explain what are the relative merits of using pdflatex
as opposed to the "classic" technique of
latex foo dvips -Ppdf foo ps2pdf foo.ps
From time to time I run into people who have difficulty because things don't work in pdflatex
, and I know that using pdflatex
gives up two things I have grown to value:
xdvi
viewerI should add that I typically get PDF with hyperlinks by using something on the order of
\usepackage[ps2pdf,colorlinks=true]{hyperref}
so it's not necessary to use pdflatex
to get good PDF.
So
pdflatex
that I don't know about?pdfLaTeX means using the LaTeX macro package with the pdfTeX engine. XeLaTeX means using the LaTeX macro package with the XeTeX engine. LuaLaTeX means using the LaTeX macro package with the LuaTeX engine.
The pdftex command uses the equivalent of the plain TeX format, and the pdflatex command uses the equivalent of the LaTeX format. To generate formats, use the -ini switch. The pdfinitex and pdfvirtex commands are pdfTeX's analogues to the initex and virtex commands.
are simply macro packages for TeX, they work equally well with pdfTeX. Hence, pdflatex , for example, calls the pdfTeX program using the standard LaTeX macros to typeset LaTeX documents, whereas it is the default rendering engine for ConTeXt documents.
2.3 TeX engines. LaTeX is a large set of commands that is executed by a TeX program (see Overview of LaTeX). Such a set of commands is called a format, and is embodied in a binary . fmt file, which can be read much more quickly than the corresponding TeX source.
My favorite pdflatex feature is the microtype package, which is available only when using pdflatex to go directly to PDF, and really produces stunning results with no effort on my part. Apart from that, the only caveats I run into are image formats:
Also, if you want to install fonts, the procedures are slightly different depending on what fonts that driver supports. (Hint: use XeTeX to instantly enable OpenType fonts.)
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