[pdftex] FYI: Feature Requests for Adobe Reader

[George N. White III]

On Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 9:11 PM, Ross Moore <ross at ics.mq.edu.au> wrote:

>  Here is an example that I'd like people to test,
>  in different version of PDF reader software and
>  different OS versions.
>
>
>  Get this mathematical paper:  (no subscription required)
>
>    http://www.austms.org.au/Publ/Bulletin/V72P1/pdf/721-5019-LoPo.pdf
>
>  Go to the page numbered 21  (actually page 9 of 18).
>  Easiest is to click on the Figure 5 or Figure 6 bookmark.
>
>  Scroll down a few lines, if necessary (according to your
>  window view) until you find the reference to Figure 7.
>  The '7' should be blue, indicating a hyperlink.

So far so good on all the viewers I can find for Fedora 8:

acroread 4.05, 5.0.10, and 8.1.2; aparition;evince; xpdf; kpdf;
gsview.  The older Adobe readers complain:

"This file may contain newer information than this viewer can
support. It may not open or display correctly. Adobe recommends that
you upgrade to the latest version of our Acrobat products. Please
visit our product site at http://www.adobe.com/acrobat"

>  Move the mouse over the 7, ready to click.
>  You should get a red rectangle, outlining a button.
>  Click the button.  What happens for you?

All the viewers except Adobe 8 go to the page with the
figure.   On my (smallish) screen at home, the figure
was displayed at the extreme right edge, so only the
frame was visible.

>  There are three possible actions that may occur, depending upon
>  your software and Javascript settings.
>
>   1. an image pops up;
>   (Check its tool-tip and see if you can move the image around.)
>
>   2. you active the hyperlink, and skip to where Figure 7 occurs;
>
>   3. nothing at all!
>
>  Oh, and another possibility   :-)
>
>   4. your reader, or OS freezes or crashes.

Don't forget:

5.  some pages are rendered incorrectly (e.g., blank page)

I've been getting this somewhat randomly for fairly
basic documents created using pdftex-1.40.3
but it is not reproducible (except when I'm up against
some deadline!).  Evince sometimes gives a
message that the rasterizer has failed.  Fedora 8
evince uses poppler-0.6.2.  The same documents
can be displayed on my debian system with a newer
poppler, so I suspect something in pdftex-1.40.3
or the fonts (probably in some figure -- the document
uses lmodern) is confusing poppler and acroread.

-- 
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia