>Date: 12 Dec 1996 03:07:29 U
>From: Aandi Inston <ev90875@dial.pipex.com>
>Subject: Re: relative links in Reader 3
>
>> Date: 11 Dec 1996 14:23:34 U
>> From: marks@medb.physics.utoronto.ca (Mark Sutherland)
>> Subject: relative links in Reader 3
>>
>> The Acrobat 3.0 Getting Started manual says on page 15: "PDF documents with
>> relative cross-document links will now work unchanged. This means you can
>> create a single collection of hyperlinked PDF files and publish them on
>> local drives, network drives, CD-ROM, or a Web server, and all links will
>> work in all locations."
>>
>> I find this is not true when you are using Reader 3.0 as a helper
>> application to your web browser. It can't follow relative cross-document
>> links between two pdf's on a Web server, nor can it follow a relative URL
>> pointing to an html page. PDFViewer can do both.
>>
>> This is bad because PDFViewer gives you such a small viewing area, being
>> confined to the browser window. I would rather use Reader as a helper app.
>> I'd like to appeal to Adobe to fix Reader (recall that Reader 2.0 could
>> follow relative URL's - this capability was lost in 2.1 and 3.0).
>>
>> Mark Sutherland
>
>I tested this with one of the last Acrobat betas and it seemed to
>work fine (set up cross document link within directory; copy onto
>web server without renaming; link is followed).
>Perhaps you'd better post a reference to an example that doesn't work.
>"Reader 2.0 could follow relative URLs..." you say, but web links weren't
>introduced until 2.1??
>- -----------------------------------------------------
>Aandi Inston Quite Software quite@dial.pipex.com
>http://ds.dial.pipex.com/quite.
>Don't miss the Christmas Rat on
>http://ds.dial.pipex.com/quite/xmasrat/

Thanks for your reply, Aandi. Try
http://medb.physics.utoronto.ca/Web/website/doc1.html . Maybe you could
check it with the full release rather than beta.

I was confused about Reader 2.0. I found that Reader 2.1 could follow
relative URL's when used together with Netscape 1.1N, but this was lost
with later Netscapes.

Note that when Reader 3.0 is used as a helper, the first pdf is saved as a
file on the client's disk. I think Reader then looks for the second pdf on
the same disk, rather than on the server. In contrast, when PDFViewer is
used no copy of the first pdf is saved. It looks like Reader can then
interpret the link as a Web link.

Mark Sutherland