Sven Joachim wrote: > On 2010-05-13 17:04 +0200, Merciadri Luca wrote: > > >> When compiling any .tex document using the route latex -> dvips -> >> ps2pdf, I get a PDF. >> > > This is a rather clumsy way these days. Why don't you use pdflatex? > > >> Normal, but the problem is that if I the PDF is >> already opened (e.g. because I was reading the version of the document >> before having modified and compiled it) when the compilation and the >> whole process ends, the opened PDF is blank, i.e. the current page >> becomes white, and every page I go at is white. >> > > The changes in the file seem to confuse acroread. At least it does not > crash. > > >> If I then re-open the >> document, I find the new version of my PDF. >> > > A smart reader would have an option to detect changes to the file and > reload it automatically. Since I haven't used acroread for ages I don't > know whether it has such an option. > > >> I would like to know how this process actually works. For me, it looks >> like the ps2pdf tool creates the PDF from scratch, and overwrites the >> old PDF. >> > > A quick experiment shows that this does not seem to be the case, ps2pdf > writes to the existing file. > > >> But why am I receiving no warning message from acroread? >> > > Ask Adobe… > > >> Anyway, acroread seems not to be locking the file, or, if so, ps2pdf >> forces the writing. >> > > I would be rather annoyed if a reader locked a file that it does not > even open for writing. > Thanks for this answer. There are *many* reasons not to use pdfLaTeX. They do not enter in the scope of this mailing list, but I am pretty sure you will find them directly on the Internet. For example, pdfLaTeX encourages one to use directly JPG, etc., for the inclusion in the document, which is pretty bad. There are also many incompatibilities with different packages. Note that, under Windows, I remember that acrord32.exe always blocked the file for writing, even if it was only being read by acrord32.exe. Okay, it's Windows. Bad memories. -- Merciadri Luca See http://www.student.montefiore.ulg.ac.be/~merciadri/ I use PGP. If there is an incompatibility problem with your mail client, please contact me. What doesn't kill you will make you stronger. (Friedrich Nietzsche)
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