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mark /Action ... /OUT pdfmark

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  mark /Action ... /OUT pdfmark jdaw1 <jdawiseman@gmail.com> - 2015-08-29 02:59 -0700
    Re: mark /Action ... /OUT pdfmark ken <ken@spamcop.net> - 2015-08-31 15:07 +0100
      Re: mark /Action ... /OUT pdfmark jdaw1 <jdawiseman@gmail.com> - 2015-08-31 15:59 -0700

#2329 — mark /Action ... /OUT pdfmark

This question is about pdfmark.

My file computes and adds to the PDF a Table of Contents, which has items made by code resembling:
mark /Action /GoTo /Dest ◊name◊  /Color [0 0 0]  /F 0  /Title ◊string◊  /OUT pdfmark

Between clumps of such ToC items there should be some form of light separation or separator. I’m using a blank line made by the likes of:
mark  /Action << >>  /Color [0 0 0]  /F 0  /Title ()  /OUT pdfmark

That looks OK in Mac Preview. But the following links to a screen grab from Adobe Acrobat Reader DC 2015.008.20082 running under Mac OS X 10.10.5: 
http://www.jdawiseman.com/2015/20150829_pdfmark_out.png
which comes from the PDF at 
http://www.jdawiseman.com/2015/20150909_Elizabeth2_Victoria.pdf (which between my posting and you reading might be updated a bit or a lot).

The ToC looks a nasty mess. The icons are bad on lines with text, but are ugly-tastic on otherwise blank lines. 

Please, is it possible to do better with pdfmark? A light horizontal rule instead of the blank line? A setting meaning “don’t be ugly”? Other?

Ideas welcome. 

Thank you.

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#2330

In article <b6c9e548-3515-42ba-98e2-b12cfeeaea9e@googlegroups.com>, 
jdawiseman@gmail.com says...

> My file computes and adds to the PDF a Table of Contents, which has 
items made by code resembling:
> mark /Action /GoTo /Dest ?name?  /Color [0 0 0]  /F 0  /Title ?string?  /OUT pdfmark
> 
> Between clumps of such ToC items there should be some form of light separation or separator. I?m using a blank line made by the likes of:
> mark  /Action << >>  /Color [0 0 0]  /F 0  /Title ()  /OUT pdfmark

OK that's not a Table Of Contents, its a document outline. There is no 
specified method for displaying a document outline, but its pretty clear 
from the spec that its not intended to be a table of contents. Its a 
quick navigation set of links. It *might* correspond to pages, sections, 
chapters etc, but it just as easily might not.

The fact that the Title is a *required* entry suggests, to me at least, 
that empty fields aren't intended. Each element in a document outline is 
intended to be something you can click and it will do something (open a 
set of sub-nodes, jump to a destination etc).

There is very little control over the appearance of a document outline, 
you can specify the title, whether its regular, bold or italic text, and 
the colour used to draw the text.

 
> The ToC looks a nasty mess. The icons are bad on lines with text, but are ugly-tastic on otherwise blank lines. 

You posted a PNG of what you *didn't* like, but not the result you did 
like. Those of us not running Macs can't see what you were 
expecting.....


> Please, is it possible to do better with pdfmark? A light horizontal rule instead of the blank line? A setting meaning ?don?t be ugly?? Other?

Because the appearnace of the outline is not specified viewers are 
entitled to do anything they want with it. I don't think you are going 
to come up with anything which will reliably do any kind of formatting, 
that's not what this is intended for.


				Ken

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#2332

> You posted a PNG of what you *didn't* like, but not the result you did 
> like. Those of us not running Macs can't see what you were 
> expecting.....

It is doing just what my understanding of the specification says it should. Alas it's ugly. I'm asking whether anybody has any ideas how to implement the broad idea (a gap in the list of links) more such that it looks less ugly. 



> Because the appearnace of the outline is not specified viewers are 
> entitled to do anything they want with it. I don't think you are going 
> to come up with anything which will reliably do any kind of formatting, 
> that's not what this is intended for.

I'd settle for "reliably" less ugly. Such as a faint horizontal rule. Or anything that you suggest that can be done.

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