[tex-eplain] [solved] Re: Outlines side panel without pdftex?

[Rodolfo Medina]

Karl Berry <karl at freefriends.org> writes:

>     I'm attaching two minimal examples.
>
> Thanks Rodolfo.  Those examples were excellent.


Great!  It's me that thank you so so so much...


> Yes, it is possible.  I've constructed the following example document to
> show how.  I can run this with either:
>   dvips -z outline-eplain.dvi && ps2pdf outline-eplain.ps
> or
>   pdftex '\nonstopmode\input outline-eplain.tex'
> and get an outline-eplain.pdf file with bookmarks.
>
> I wrote a bunch of comments to explain what's needed.
>
> The document uses Eplain's hyperlink stuff to define the destinations
> (\hldest) sec1 and sec1.1.  This is why it is necessary to pass -z to
> dvips.  You could redo all the logic to define destinations in both
> pdftex and dvips, but why ...

Yes, in fact: no need at all.


> This fails with dvipdfm(x).  I doubt it would be hard to make it work,
> but since you didn't ask for it, I didn't spend time on it.

No need either: it's passing through ps format that I need.



> I am not sure if there is any functionality to be added to Eplain here.
> I guess I could imagine a macro to define a bookmark (aka outline) entry
> in a backend-agnostic way, like \hlbookmark{label}{count}{text}, but I
> thought it would be better to see how this actually works out in
> practice before working on such a thing.

What has suprised me is just the fact that you didn't need writing new code or
macros, only using what was already there.  That's wonderful.  So let's say
that adding this feature explicitely to the next version of Eplain would
perhaps be useful just to let people know and realize that such a capability -
to have bookmarks also without pdftex - exists.

In both methods: pdftex and - now - dvips -> ps2pdf, the bookmarks titles don't
support TeX code like dollar symbol for mathematical formulas and latin accents
above vocals.  But I suppose this has to do with postscript language
compatibility with TeX.  Is \pdfescapestring - that you mention - perhaps about
this?  And only for pdftex?


> See what you think ... --thanks, karl.

I think all the best!  I've been looked for that feature for months because I
really need it, and now finally here it is thanks to your kind and precious
work.  Thanks again and again.  And, once again, thank you for Eplain, that
allows and helps plain TeX users to continue being such... ;-)

Best

Rodolfo