Re: Capabilities of PDF

[Shlomo Perets <shlomo -at- microtype -dot- com>]

Chaim,

You wrote:
..
>1) He requested that the hyperlinks be done in color (similar to Internet
>pages). From what I know, this is definitely possible in HTML, but I don't
>think it is possible for PDF. If it is possible in PDF, could you let me
>know?

Link color is not a preference you can set in Acrobat Reader, but you 
can

- use color in your FrameMaker files through character formats 
(depending on how you create the links, the character format can be
included your cross-reference format, or applied manually). 
You can use two parallel templates with multiple definitions of the
specific character format to produce printed output with no colored
links).

- use Ari's Link Tool - a Acrobat 4/Exchange plug-in to change the 
visual properties of all links.

- use VisLinks (part of my TimeSavers) to specify that all links generated
by FrameMaker will have the properties you like. 

(last two options affect only link rectangle, not link text)


>2) He requested a word search capability for the manuals. How do I do that?


Using Acrobat Catalog, part of Acrobat. Your end users have to use
"Acrobat Reader with Search" (free).

Briefly, to make the search effective:
- you will need to set meaningful document info fields for all PDFs
(DocInfo fields can be set in Acrobat, or specified from within FrameMaker
(FM5.1-5.5.3) using pdfmark commands (in FM556 you need the TimeSavers for 
this).
- smaller PDFs (such as chapters) are significantly better than
  a whole book converted to a single PDF

You did not mention which Acrobat version and platform you use, but
be aware that TrueType/Type 3 fonts and/or the spread (interletter spacing)
might adversely affect searchability (with both Search and Find functions).


>3) The pagination in the manual is different from the pagination in the
>Adobe Acrobat program. He wants the page number on the bottom of the Adobe
>Acrobat screen to be identical to the page number in the manual. Is this
>possible to accomplish in PDF?

*Acrobat 4* supports Page Labels, which is exactly what you are asking.
Page Labels can be set manually in Acrobat, or through pdfmark commands.
I recommend a much more efficient and cost effective way: 
PageLabeler, a FrameMaker plug-in from Rick Quatro 
(http://www.mindspring.com/~frameexpert), which will set page labels
for you automatically.


Shlomo Perets

MicroType
http://www.microtype.com
FrameMaker-to-Acrobat: TimeSavers / Advanced Techniques Course / Solutions