Bug#289848: tetex-bin: pdflatex generates truncated seminar slides

[Heiko Oberdiek <oberdiek@uni-freiburg.de>]

On Fri, Jan 14, 2005 at 02:46:02PM +0100, Frank Küster wrote:

> Thomas Esser would like to add some PDFTeX-specific code to a
> configuration file, and we would appreciate your help, because we don't
> know the necessary pdftex commands. 
> 
> The seminar class usually sets its slides in landscape format, and
> issues the command \printlandscape. To make the paper being displayed in
> landscape format in viewers, Thomas has used a configuration file with
> the following line for a long time:
> 
> \renewcommand{\printlandscape}{\special{landscape}}
> 
> which only works with latex-dvips-ps2pdf/distiller. I suggested to
> change this according to:
> 
> -\renewcommand{\printlandscape}{\special{landscape}}
> +\usepackage{ifpdf}
> +\renewcommand{\printlandscape}{%
> +  \ifpdf
> +    some code I don't know
> +  \else
> +    \special{landscape}%
> +  \fi
> +}
> 
> But I do not know which special commands are needed for PDF. Maybe you
> even know something for VTeX?

I would not use and I am not using pdfTeX with seminar, too many problems.
Also the problem is not entirely clear to me, you mean the setting
of the /Rotate entry in the page attributes?
Then the token register \pdfpagesattr
  \pdfpagesattr{/Rotate 90}
could be used for pdfTeX. And it could be overwritten by
\pdfpageattr in a group for single pages. But this macro is
used for other effects (transition, duration, thumbnails, ...)
and no mechanism exist for working together. Therefore the code
I am using in hpdftex.def and thumbpdf is more complicate to
detect previous entries and removing obsolete ones.
But perhaps the above line is enough for the configuration file.
(However, the problem remains for mixed up pages, some in
landscape, some in portrait.)

Yours sincerely
  Heiko <oberdiek@uni-freiburg.de>