Re: Groff macro to make .UR and .UE links clickable in PDF?

[James K. Lowden]

On Wed, 17 Jun 2020 08:59:17 +0200
Jan Stary <hans@stare.cz> wrote:

> > This would be an ideal solution, if it is possible with groff. When
> > I must have a URL visible in the text, I'd love for it to be in
> > small text as a footnote. How hard is it to add footnotes to a
> > package like mdoc in groff? 
> 
> I don't think something like that belongs into mdoc(7) at all.
> It's a "semantic markup language for formatting manual pages".
> Let it be what is is, and has been for decades.

I think there's an incorrect assumption embedded in your answer.  To
say footnotes don't belong in manpages is to assume a presentation
formation that doesn't need/support footnotes.  The only form that
*might* be true of is electronic, because footnotes surely "belong" on
printed pages.  

But nothing prevents man pages from being printed pages.  (That, as you
may know, was the original intention.  Viewing man pages in the
terminal was a convenience for those times when the printed manual was
too far away.) 

Many HTML documents have footnotes; wikipedia comes mind.  The
jump-back-and-forth navigation they offer is convenient.  

--jkl