How do pages included with \includepdf using pdfpages differ from regular pdf pages produced by pdflatex?

Question

I wondered if anybody could explain what differences there are in the PDF which would differentiate

1. pages produced by running pdflatex on the .tex file where the code is part of that file

   and

2. pages produced by running pdflatex on the .tex file where the pages are the result of \includepdf and the included pdfs were produced by a separate run of pdflatex on separate .tex files.

For example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pdfpages}
\begin{document}
Here is a page of the first kind.
\clearpage
\includepdf{pdfpage.pdf}
\end{document}

Where pdfpage.pdf is the result of running pdflatex on

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
Here is a page of the second kind.
\end{document}

I am interested because although my compiled documents print fine on printers, if I try to print from a photocopier, it will not print anything after the first includepdf. (If there is nothing before this, it gives an error; otherwise, it just prints the pages which came before that point.) For various reasons, I have to print some things from the photocopier rather than a printer and so this is obviously quite awkward. The problem is not specific to any particular document but appears to be general to documents I produce in this way.

So what might the photocopier but not the printer see or not see at the point where \includepdf occurred in the source? (And is there anything I can do about it?)

Note that the MWE is not a real one because that would require me to run test documents on machines at work and I would prefer to do that only if I cannot learn anything about the problem in any other way. So the example represents the pattern I've noticed but I cannot rule out something else being the real issue at this point.

Answer 1

For every page of included pdfs pdf/Xe/LuaTeX creates a "Form XObject" (PDF Reference, section 8.10), which introduces one more "level of indirection" than for directly created content (which resides "directly" in the Page Objects (section 7.7.3.3)). This additional level of indirection can cause problems in older Raster Image Processors, as it is one additional "q/Q nesting" (see section C.2).