[tex-eplain] Improvement for hyperlink option handling

[Daniel H. Luecking]

On Sun, 4 Sep 2005, Karl Berry wrote:

>     The problem is that when color.sty is not loaded, the links
>     are not colored.  So if we make no border by default, then,
>     again by default (without color.sty), the links will not be
>     marked in any way.  Would this be OK?
>
> I guess I was imagining that hyperlinks would imply loading color.  But
> on reflection maybe that is not a good idea.  Hmm.
>
> I will ponder this when I read the doc.  If it is easy (i.e., one
> command) to change the default from "colored" to "boxed", I think it
> would be ok to not mark them by default.  Boxes just look so horrible to
> me ...

My understanding is that the boxes are visible only on the screen. They
are not printed. The PDF creator can choose the color of the boxes, but
I don't think it requires the color package if no actual text is
colored. Coloring links, if I remember correctly, colors the text and
turns off the border (sets the lines to zero thickness). This causes the
color to be printed.

The problem (in my opinion) is that there is no method present in
AcroRead to highlight links _only_ on screen except boxing them. I am
not sure about other viewing programs. (GSview will display PS files and
provide linking within the document; some dvi viewers will do the same
with dvi files.)


Dan

-- 
Dan Luecking
Dept. of Mathematical Sciences
University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, AR 72101