[tex-eplain] pdftex vs. `dvips -> ps2pdf': hyperlinks

[Rodolfo Medina]

Hi Karl, hi all Eplain TeX men.

For some particular reasons I prefer not to use pdftex, rather dvips -> ps2pdf.
Two main reasons: first, I need some special PostScript effects in my MusiXTeX
papers, that are lost with pdftex; and second, because I think - maybe I'm
wrong - that in some way pdftex is something extraneous to pure (plain) TeX and
I want to use only (e)plain TeX as far as possibile, for its simplicity.

This attempt to produce and work with TeX pdf output without pdftex seems not
at all to be impossibile.  In fact, recently I spoke with some plain TeX
experts, creators of macros, who stated it was impossibile or extremely
difficult to have - without pdftex but only with dvips - hyperlinks between pdf
files and also left side outline panel.  But, thanks to Karl, we saw that the
latter is actually possible, and actually also the former, as they themselves
found out soon; and with extreme simplicity and only very few lines of code.

However, though, I see that hyperlinks under pdftex locate the target much more
precisely, with accuracy of fire of a line, whereas with ps2pdf the accuracy of
fire is one page or half a page.  Now, my question is: do you think it would be
possibile, and how?, to have the same hyperlinks accuracy also with ps2pdf?

Thanks, cheers

Rodolfo