C Y <smustudent1@yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Raymond Toy <toy@rtp.ericsson.se> wrote:
>> Is it possible to embed a pdf file inside of another pdf file? Or
>> some way of massaging a pdf file so that it can used in some other
>> file. If not, then I don't see this as being all that useful for
>> anything other than producing pretty (ha!) plots for maxima.
>
> I imagine, since we are creating the pdf document fairly directly,
the
> relevant plotting output can be included as part of a larger file -
> just have output modes for "part of document" and "standalone pdf".
> Of course, maybe it would be more complicated, but I don't quite
> see why.
AFAIK it is not straightforward to glom pieces of PDF
files together to make a whole PDF file. PDF is a binary
format (even if all bytes are printable 7 bit ascii) --
a PDF file comprises a number of objects and there is a
lookup table at the end which tells the byte offset of
each object within the file. So to combine PDF's it would
probably be necessary to parse the file to extract objects,
combine the objects, and rebuild the offset table. Or,
maintain each object separately and only output the objects
plus their offset table when there are no more objects to add.
PDF has several capabilities over and above PS, such as
internal links, although I don't know that all such
capabilities are useful in a technical context. However,
a PDF viewer seems to be more common on MS Windows systems
than a PS viewer, and that may be the strongest argument
in favor of PDF for Maxima.
For what it's worth,
Robert Dodier
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