Re: [Groff] Re: groff support for PDF document navigation?

[MARSHALL Keith]

Werner Lemberg wrote:
>> AFAIK, groff has little support for generating links
>> that could show up in PDF documents.  Looking on the
>> web, I only found:
>> 
>>    http://www.science.uva.nl/~bobd/useful/gpresent
>>    www.science.uva.nl/~bobd/useful/gpresent/piclink.pdf
>> 
>> Am I missing something?  Is there any chance that this
>> might be on the way?
>
> There is no development into this direction, sorry.  Maybe there is a
> good guy who is willing to write an add-on macro package (like
> www.tmac) which provides essential PDF features like links and
> bookmark support?

I have been looking into this myself, over the past couple of weeks.
I will gladly contribute my macro package, when I have a few loose
ends tidied up -- I already have bookmarks working, internal references
almost so, and a basic manpage on the way.

Heinz-Jürgen Oertel wrote:
> The Windows package maintained by Kees Zeelenberg has some support for 
pdf 
> links and bookmarks. We are successfully using some basic macros for the 

> bookmarks at least.
> See also this email:
> http://www.ffii.org/archive/mails/groff/2001/Jan/0047.html

I had a look at this, and have drawn inspiration from it, along with
more recent discussion on the list, initiated by Carlos J. G. Duarte, in
the development of my own package.  IIRC, Kees' macros were undocumented,
needed to run in unsafe mode, and hadn't addressed the issue of computing
bounding boxes for link hotspots.  Carlos tackled the bounding box issue,
in respect of internet URI links.  My intention is to consolidate all the
features in a single core package, eliminate the requirement for using
unsafe mode, and to provide some documentation.

Best regards,
Keith.