X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1431" "Tue" "15" "December" "1998" "20:01:35" "+0100" "Hans Aberg" "haberg@MATEMATIK.SU.SE" nil "30" "Re: portable LaTeX" "^Date:" nil nil "12" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: from listserv.gmd.de (listserv.gmd.de [192.88.97.1]) by mail.Uni-Mainz.DE (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id UAA11163; Tue, 15 Dec 1998 20:23:33 +0100 (MET) Received: from lsv1.listserv.gmd.de (192.88.97.2) by listserv.gmd.de (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <9.2DA1261D@listserv.gmd.de>; Tue, 15 Dec 1998 20:23:02 +0100 Received: from RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE by RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8b) with spool id 413788 for LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE; Tue, 15 Dec 1998 20:22:49 +0100 Received: from mail0.nada.kth.se (mail0.nada.kth.se [130.237.222.70]) by relay.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id UAA07438 for ; Tue, 15 Dec 1998 20:22:28 +0100 (MET) Received: from [130.237.37.111] (sl87.modempool.kth.se [130.237.37.113]) by mail0.nada.kth.se (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA29769 for ; Tue, 15 Dec 1998 20:22:25 +0100 (MET) X-Sender: su95-hab@mail.nada.kth.se References: <13938.39518.68424.927988@fell.open.ac.uk> <199812092035.VAA16014@na6.mathematik.uni-tuebingen.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Message-ID: Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project In-Reply-To: <13942.19034.339454.14516@srahtz> Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 20:01:35 +0100 From: Hans Aberg Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L Subject: Re: portable LaTeX Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 3151 At 11:39 +0000 1998/12/15, Sebastian Rahtz wrote: >Hans Aberg writes: > > Depends: In DVI, such links are shipped out using \special, when converted > > to PS, it must be put into a similar box, which later is converted > > correctly to PDF. If people sit down and work it out correctly, it may > > work, but it is a fragile procedure, as it hangs on a chain of extensions >I have maintained a LaTeX package since 1995 which manages this >process, supporting half a dozen different backends. Believe me, its not >fragile (ok, its not unbreakable!). The bits of it that relate >to TeX->DVI->PS->PDF are reliable, well-understood, and supported. > > > On the other hand, if the format from the beginning understands links (like > > PDF), there is no doubt that it will work if the format converted to also > > understands links. >the PostScript which is fed to Distiller or ps2pdf understands >links. so there you go. read up on the pdfmark operator, if you are >interested So are you saying that pdfTeX is wholly unnecessary, as this works just as well? It seems to contradict your earlier statements about pdfTeX. By the way, can pdf display everything taht a WWW browser can (say interactive Java byte-code)? Hans Aberg * Email: Hans Aberg * Home Page: * AMS member listing: