Path: inforamp.net!woody07.inforamp.net!user From: poynton@poynton.com (Charles Poynton) Newsgroups: comp.text.frame Subject: Re: Frame-Acrobat Date: Thu, 02 Feb 1995 22:40:53 -0500 Organization: Poynton Vector Lines: 134 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: coach13.inforamp.net Steve Weyer writes, > Charles checks this group, but I'll send him email ... You guys are talking about me while my back's turned! First, to answer Lisa, > Can anyone tell me how to get a copy of Charles Poynton's tech note? > Or any other such tech notes? A page of descriptions and links is at If you don't have a web browser, get one! Seriously, the readers of this group are by definition specialists in technical communication and the distribution of information. The web is vital in that respect. I have written a document about using a Mac to access the net using a dial-up PPP service provider. You can find its description and location in the README at the top level of my ftp directory. It's also on the web linked from my home page (in the signature below), but if you're reading it from the web, you don't need it unless you want to learn about dialup PPP, or you have a flaky MacTCP/MacPPP connection and want to fix it. Now, down to the business of these Acrobat links. As Steve correctly points out, my procedure merely adds PostScript code to the PostScript that you pull from Frame. The procedure just adds bookmarks. It will work in any scenario below. The previous version of the note omitted the to mention a few limitations of current Frame implementations with respect to PostScript generation and pdfmark inclusion. I will summarize these limitations. None of these are directly implicated in the bookmark procedure, although there's an indirect connection. First of all, Frame 4.0.2 or later on Mac produces in its PostScript "pdfmark" operators corresponding to hypertext crossreferences. When distilled, those operators generate hypertext links in the resulting PDF file. It's very nice! BUT -- Frame on a Mac cannot produce a single PostScript file from a book. It produces a SEPARATE PostScript file from ECAH Frame file in a book (call them "chapters"). Each of these PostScript files appears to start with page one, and all of the internal crossreference links (call them intrachapter links) are referenced to page one. When you concatenate for distilling in a single job, the pages will all image correctly, but the hypertext links internal to each chapter will all collide at the front of the book. "Known bug." Furthermore, Frame's Postscript includes code for intrachapter links, but has no PostScript code (pdfmark operators) for crossreferences outside the chapter (interchapter links). Now, Frame on UNIX and Windows produces a single PostScript file for a book. BUT -- Frame on UNIX and Windows versions don't produce any pdfmark operators. The current versions offer no possibility of Acrobat links. "Known problem." This is contrary to Steve's note (which is otherwise a very good summary and has many good tips) -- I too shared this misconception until Rick Oliver corrected it. SO you can have (i) a one-chapter book with fully functional links [Mac], or (ii) a multi-chapter book with faulty intrachapter links and no interchapter links [Mac], or (iii) a single- or multi-chapter book with no links at all [UNIX, Windows]. You can take individual Mac files and Insert them one-by-one using Acrobat Exchange to make a single composite PDF file. This will maintain the intrachapter links, but due to being performed behind the back of the bookmark procedure, will defeat the bookmarks. I have explored writing a program to rejeuvenate the page numbers in Mac Frame's individual PostScript files, just to get the multi-chapter-book-with-intra- chapter-links case working. Much to my surprise, I discovered that the page numbers in the ultimate book are not found in machine-readable form anywhere in the generated PostScript, except for the place where they are presented for imaging onto the page. This makes it pretty difficult to parse them out in an automated way, because the page numbers can be anywhere on the page, or not there, or in roman numerals, etc. Even if this correction could be made to each chapter's internal crossreference links, the it would be a case of diminishing returns because Frame has not included in its PostScript code the interchapter crossreferences. In my Color FAQ, I hand-edited the PostScript to fix the crossreference links. No fun. And mine is in effect only a two-chapter book (TOC and main body). You could also manually fix them up in Exchange, but that's no fun either (I did that in the previous version of the Color FAQ). My document is MUCH shorter and has many fewer crossreferences than the documents that most of you are working on. So that's where we stand. For now, if you need Acrobat links, stick to single-chapter books printed to PostScript on a Mac. Larry Dybala's idea of putting the TOC at the end of the PDF is a very good trick -- diabolical, may I say? And Steve notes that if a generated index is pasted at the end of a document, its links can be made to work. Finally, if you're still with me, a word about the framers mailing list reflector. I enjoy reading the comp.text.frame newsgroup once every two or three days, except when I'm really busy when it's once a week. I guess its content is partially-overlapping with the framers mailing list. I receive those e-mails, but not at my main e-mail address. I couldn't stand it -- getting interrupted twelve or fifteen times daily, having non-essential mail dropping into my in basket. I prefer to read news in a more controlled way, like reading the newspaper instead of reading the letters left by my postman. So I am seriously contemplating dropping my Framers subscription. But if I do so I will miss lots of nice juicy little morsels and the odd free lunch. If anyone out there has news-to-mail or even better mail-to-news gateway capability, or even knows a guy who said he has a friend who heard of someone that could, please drop me a line and give some thought to how we could coerce that person to start up a gateway service. That way, we can all stick together. Thanks for listening, C. -- Charles Poynton [Mac Eudora, MIME, BinHqx] tel: 416 486 3271 fax: 416 486 3657