[pdftex] exact \pdfdest location?

[Karl Berry]

Forgive my ignorance, but is it possible to make an exact destination
target location?

I received a bug report for Texinfo about toc entries in the outlines
(aka bookmarks) not going to the actual place where the section started,
but instead to the top of the page.

Which is perhaps explained by this statement in the pdftex manual under
`Destinations and links':
    This location is tied to the page, not the exact location on
    the page. The main reason for this is that pdf maintains a dedicated
    list of these annotations --and some more when optimized-- for the sole
    purpose of speed.

But I find it hard to completely believe this.  PDF format inherently
does not let you define a given location on a page (for example, right
before a section heading) and then jump to it?  You can only get to the
beginning of the whole page?  This seems unlikely to me.

In looking through the pdftex archives, I found some suggestions that
\pdfannot doesn't have this limitation, but I couldn't find any actual
examples of how to do that.  What's the \pdfannot equivalent of \pdfdest
name{foo} xyz?  (That is, if \pdfannot can really gives you exact locations.)

Or in fact how you actually link to a \pdfannot.  Does \pdfstartlink
goto ... suffice?


Anyway, FWIW, attached is a sample pdf document showing the problem.  If
you view the second page under acrobat at high magnification (400%,
800%), and click the `Setting flags...' section link in the bookmarks,
you'll end up at the top of the page of the text, and in fact the given
section title will not be visible.  Similarly if you click the xref to
the first section that's at the bottom of the page ...

Any advice appreciated.
karl


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