So I am starting to use the pgf package for graphics in LaTeX, because it rocks. The biggest thing is that it is compatible with both postscript and pdf output, which is very nice. I have been using mostly pdftex lately, because it means a faster compile time, and has other features like advanced typography (more on that in a different post).

I have also been toying around with XeTeX, which allows one to use any old font with latex, and do some really fancy things as well (see The beauty of LaTeX). And finally, I am working on a greeting card, which I want to print in landscape mode. To do all of this, I found I need to do the following

In the preamble, include the following:

\def\pgfsysdriver{pgfsys-dvipdfm.def}
\usepackage{pgf}

and when compiling, use

xelatex -output-driver=xdvipdfmx -papersize="letter -l" %