Bug#252104: xpdf: Please provide a -dev package
Package: xpdf
Version: 3.00-4.backports.org.1
Severity: wishlist
The bug title is perhaps not too correct - upstream would need to
provide such thing as a "library version" first. But in fact at least
pdf(e)tex, perhaps also other programs, use xpdf as if it where a
library. Therefore, we ship a copy of the xdpf sources in the
orig.tar.gz of tetex-bin, and the compiler takes from there what it
needs (linking statically, of course).
Unfortunately, the included version of xpdf is often outdated (teTeX
has a slow release cycle). For example, pdftex in Debian seems not to
be able to read pdf 1.5 because of this.
It would be great if it would be possible to configure pdftex with
"--with-system-xpdf" and automatically get new xpdf features. I don't
know which parts pdftex actually uses, and don't know much about its
sources. If you think it is useless to contact xpdf's upstream without
knowing this, I would try to initiate a contact between the pdftex
team and the xpdf team about this. But first I wanted to ask (and
notify) you.
Regards, Frank
-- System Information
Debian Release: 3.0-bunk-2
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux alhambra 2.4.25 #1 Mit Feb 18 16:41:07 CET 2004 i686
Locale: LANG=de_DE@euro, LC_CTYPE=de_DE@euro
Versions of packages xpdf depends on:
ii xpdf-common 3.00-4.backports.org.1 Portable Document Format (PDF) sui
ii xpdf-reader 3.00-4.backports.org.1 Portable Document Format (PDF) sui
ii xpdf-utils 3.00-4.backports.org.1 Portable Document Format (PDF) sui
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