Hi:
FLYOVER works for PDF tables, but will not work for GPLOT. As far as I know, the HTML= option for GPLOT, GCHART, etc is the only way to build a link that SAS/Graph will respect and correctly build, for HTML destinations. That's because HTML has built in tags, the <A> and the <IMG>. PDF does NOT use those tags. PDF has another, proprietary to Adobe method, of building interactivity -- when you use the URL= method or the FLYOVER= method, ODS PDF knows how to build those links or popups in Adobe format.
I believe that your suggested workarounds will have the same problem as when you try to use HTML= with ODS PDF. If you revise the program from the link in your earlier mail to go to ODS PDF, you will see that the HTML= drilldowns are not "active" in the PDF document. When you open the file in Acrobat Reader, the links built with HTML= are gone -- that's because the graph image from SAS/Graph is translated to an internal PDF format.
As far as I know, your #1 and #2 ideas are not feasible because ODS ESCAPECHAR in-line formatting is not supported in SAS/Graph. For example, you can only use ESCAPECHAR formatting in a SAS/Title statement if you use an option that takes the title "away" from SAS/Graph and sends the title, with ESCAPECHAR strings, to ODS.
So, while that might work for the title and the footnote, that would not work for your graph points or axis or labels. Your idea of making a transparent layer and overlaying them on the graph sounds like an HTML technique -- I don't think this will work with ODS PDF because ODS does not build layers. You might, if you had a full Adobe editing product, be able to edit the PDF file created by SAS and then use Adobe products to manually insert bookmarks -- does Adobe have the kind of "layering" that you envision?
The foundation of Adobe PDF format was as a file format meant to hold a document image as that image would get sent to a printer. Since there is no interactivity or drilldown on a printed piece of paper, it makes sense to me that the file created for ODS PDF would not have the same kind of interactivity as an ODS HTML file.
If there -is- any workaround for PDF and SAS/Graph as far as drilldown capability, my bet would be on Tech Support knowing what the workaround was.
cynthia