README for xdvipdfmx
====================

xdvipdfmx is an extended version of dvipdfmx; see dvipdfmx's README for
more information.

The extensions provided by xdvipdfmx provide support for the Extended DVI
(.xdv) format used by xetex, including support for platform-native fonts
and the xetex graphics primitives, as well as Unicode/OpenType text.

Like its direct ancestor dvipdfmx, this is free software and may be
redistributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License,
version 2 or (at your option) any later version.

There is a hope to merge xdvipdfmx into dvipdfmx.

Jonathan Kew mentions that in the past, XeTeX used a Mac-specific
program xdv2pdf as the backend instead of xdvipdfmx.  xdv2pdf supported
a couple of special effects that are not yet available through
xdvipdfmx: the Quartz graphics-based shadow support, AAT "variation"
fonts like Skia, transparency as an attribute of font color, maybe other
things.  It would be nice for those things to continue to be supported,
if anyone is looking for some nontrivial but not-impossible job and
happens across this file ...
