I often use the ALT attribute for <a> elements in my XHTML documents. Could the value for the alt attribute be made into an equivalent PDF element like: highlight or stickynote? I'm not sure of the exact PDF names for these elements, but the idea is a simple text box that shows onHover and disappears onLostFocus.

A quick point: the XHTML "title" attribute, which can be applied to every XHTML element, is intended to carry advisory text that is traditionally rendered as a tooltip. The "alt" attribute only applies to img elements, and is used as alternative text content when images are not available.

I think it would be feasible to add tooltip support to Prince, probably via a new CSS property used in the XHTML default style sheet:

*[title] { prince-tooltip: attr(title) }

However, we will need to consider other kinds of PDF annotations also, which will probably use a similar mechanism.

Agreed, much better to allow multiple elements to have highlights and use the title attribute instead of alt. -jc

John Clarke
Cornerstone Systems Northwest Inc.