[OS X TeX] Where does the assumption that large counts are phone numbers arise?

[William Slough]

Just to add another voice, it seems that this is Apple's way of being
"helpful."  It looks like this is caused by something they call "Data
Detectors" which can be toggled on or off, but only in some applications.
There is such a toggle in TeXShop under Edit | Substitutions but this
doesn't appear to have any effect within the PDF viewer.

Curiously, I get different behaviors in the PDF file produced by your MWE
depending on whether I use the TeXShop PDF viewer or separately open the
PDF file with Safari. With Safari, it still detects these numbers as phone
numbers but it doesn't start up FaceTime.

In the "misery loves company" department, there are more than a few people
on the Internet complaining about (seemingly) not being able to turn off
Data Detectors in Safari!

Bill Slough

On Mon, Feb 12, 2024 at 7:50 PM Markus Klyver <markusklyver at hotmail.com>
wrote:

> Seems like a localization issue.
>
>
> https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-the-system-language-mh26684/mac
> Change the language your Mac uses
> <https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-the-system-language-mh26684/mac>
> On your Mac, change the language shown in menus and dialogs and in many
> apps.
> support.apple.com
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *Från:* MacOSX-TeX <macosx-tex-bounces at email.esm.psu.edu> för Ross Moore <
> ross.moore at mq.edu.au>
> *Skickat:* den 13 februari 2024 02:45
> *Till:* TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List <macosx-tex at email.esm.psu.edu>
> *Ämne:* Re: [OS X TeX] Where does the assumption that large counts are
> phone numbers arise?
>
> Hi Doug.
>
> It has nothing to do with TeXshop, IMHO.
>
> You can see it happening in my Mail .app.
>
> [image: Screenshot 2024-02-13 at 12.40.22 pm.png]
>
> That popup, which appeared after clicking the number, is asking to add the
> tel.# into Contacts.
>
> Be assured I did not do so. :-)
>
> Surely it is a system bug/feature — dunno how to stop it.
>
>
> Very amusing post; thanks!
>
>
> Ross
>
>
> On 13 Feb 2024, at 11:03 am, Doug McKenna <doug at mathemaesthetics.com>
> wrote:
>
> I'm running TeXShop 4.7 on MacOS 12.1, using pdfTeX, Version
> 3.141592653-2.6-1.40.22 (TeX Live 2021).
>
> I'm writing a math paper that references a sequence of combinatorial
> counts. The sequence gets large pretty fast.
>
> Here is a MWE:
>
> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
> \documentclass[letterpaper,11pt]{article}
> \begin{document}
> For $n=1\dots 7$ the counts are $0, 4, 40, 2244, 185920, 106912792,
> 90124167440$.
>
> In PDF output, click on either of the two final (non-phone) numbers.
> \end{document}
> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
>
> When viewing the PDF after typesetting, I just discovered that clicking on
> either of the last two counts brings up the FaceTime app on my Mac. After
> my initial WTF confusion, I then discovered that hovering the mouse for a
> while over either large count in the PDF raises a little hint box showing
> the count prefixed with "tel: ".
>
> These are not telephone numbers, and it's annoying for someone to have
> assumed they are, allegedly for my convenience.
>
> Where in all the pdfTeX machinery is this assumption being made, if at
> all? Is it in the PDF file itself, or is it in the MacOS PDF display
> library that TeXShop is using? Does this only occur on MacOS?
>
> Can I affirmatively do something in my TeX code that creates the PDF to
> prevent this false positive?
>
>
> Doug McKenna
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