GNU Texinfo 4.2: 19.15 PDF Output

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## 19.15 PDF Output

You can generate a PDF output file from Texinfo source by using the `pdftex` program to process your file instead of plain `tex`. Just run ‘`pdftex foo.texi`’ instead of ‘`tex foo.texi`’, or give the ‘`--pdf`’ option to `texi2dvi`.

PDF stands for ‘Portable Document Format’. It was invented by Adobe Systems some years ago for document interchange, based on their PostScript language. A PDF reader for the X window system is freely available, as is the definition of the file format. Since PDF is a binary format, there are no ‘`@ifpdf`’ or ‘`@pdf`’ commands as with the other output formats.

Despite the ‘portable’ in the name, PDF files are nowhere near as portable in practice as the plain ASCII formats (Info, HTML) that Texinfo supports (DVI portability is arguable). They also tend to be much larger and do not support the bitmap fonts used by TeX (by default) very well. Nevertheless, a PDF file does preserve an actual printed document on a screen as faithfully as possible, so it has its place.

PDF support in Texinfo is fairly rudimentary.

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This document was generated by a tester on a sunny day using texi2html.