[pdftex] <glue> in <rule spec> in \pdf* commands possible?

[Marco Loskamp]

Hi all,

I am currently playing around with the \pdfannot command, trying to make
editable PDF forms. Overall, I'm very pleased with the results... However,
there is one problem with glue:

The <rule spec> in  http://www.tug.org/applications/pdftex/pdftex-syntax.txt
refers to a <dimension> parameter, which is not further defined itself in the
pdftex-syntax.txt - so I've looked up <dimen> in the TeXbook, and found that
<glue...> is possible. But when I try to use glue as \pdfannot width\skip0,
where \skip0=0pt plus 1fill, I don't get the desired /Rect [...] in the PDF
file. The /Rect [...] in the PDF file is rather constructed from the explicit
<dimen> part of the \skip0 glue (i.e. 0pt in my example above).

The problem is that, without being able to use <glue...>, I can't produce
forms with [text-]fields that use "the rest of the line" or so.

Any suggestions?

Also, is it possible to rewrite the \pdfannot command (in the pdftex sources)
so that it doesn't put the /Rect [...] after the {general text} inserted from
the \pdfannot command? That way, a user could override the default rectangle
computed by pdftex.
If that leads to any compatibility problems with existing macro packages, or
any other problems with coding itself, just ignore this question!

Thank you very much in advance, and Merry Christmas!

Marco Loskamp