Re: @ref{} adds ( ) in HTML

[Karl Berry]

Hi Akim,

Not trying to change your ways, but just a few comments and clarifications.

    - less Makefile machinery

I find Makefiles are simpler for pdftex.  One command vs. three.

      Don't forget the case of pictures that need to be provided in two
      formats

http://ctan.org/tex-archive/support/purifyeps

However, I haven't actually used it, because I find I very rarely care
about DVI for anything except Texinfo, these days.  Not being a
self-contained format is a real drag for putting on the web.  (And I
never care about PS.)  But that's just me.

    - less temp files

I don't understand.  There are zero temp files in the case of pdftex,
and many in the pipeline case.

    - the same output in both cases (it appears that pdflatex and latex
      don't use the same algorithms

No.  tex and pdftex definitely do use exactly the same algorithms, by
default.

      http://www.lrde.epita.fr/~didier/comp/tex2pspdf.php)

When that page says line breaks may differ, it is talking about
*optional* so-called "microtypography" features (character protrusion
and font expansion), which are disabled by default.

(However, I don't think there is anything wrong with those features, if
you are eventually aiming for PDF and don't care about DVI/PDF
equivalence.  In fact, they are rather cool.  In the latest release of
pdftex, they are easier to use than before.)

    - support for pstricks and all the packages that use it!

Now this is indeed a real problem, and cannot be solved by purifyeps (I
don't think).  There is a LaTeX package, ps4pdf, which helps, but it
does require a bunch more TeX runs, etc.
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/ps4pdf/

Most of our work in TUGboat is done with pdftex/pdflatex now.  The major
exception is for articles using pstricks :).


BTW, there is a third option: use dvipdfm to construct pdf from dvi.

I've used all three methods both successfully and unsuccessfully from
time to time.  I haven't found any particular difference in quality for
pdftex pdf vs. ps2pdf pdf, so we use whichever makes the most sense for
the problem at hand.


Anyway, back to the original point -- I have no problem in principle
with adding hyperlinks to the dvi output.  It requires putting in the
\special's which xdvi will understand.  (This is completely different
from the way links are handled in pdf.)  However, it's not something I
plan to spend time on myself.  (I've added it to the todo list.)

Regards,
karl