Show HN: Generate pdf with gitbook or mdbook url
1–10 of 45 posts
Re: Show HN: Generate pdf with gitbook or mdbook url
#2Sometimes I feel we're never going to be rid of PDFs. Everything can be converted into one, but you can't reliably convert from it.
They're going to be here in 200 years.
Re: Show HN: Generate pdf with gitbook or mdbook url
#3Or you can just run the target in Sphinx, and get better organized output with real table of contents and indexes - it supports a huge number of output formats: https://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/master/usage/builders/index.ht...
If you must use markdown, there's always https://mystmd.org which integrates directly into Sphinx, modulo minor bits of weirdness due to markdown being a mishmash of extensions.
Re: Show HN: Generate pdf with gitbook or mdbook url
#4Sometimes I feel we're never going to be rid of PDFs. Everything can be converted into one, but you can't reliably convert from it. They're going to be here in 200 years.
They have become a reliable way in office & legal processes around the world in terms of fixed layouts & content immutability (in a sort of layman view. Knowing Acrobat Pro exists & PDF editing too - but I'd argue that in majority of cases its not as trivial as modifying text file or markup sources, with intention to change or forge).
Correct me if wrong but Word/LibreOffice layouts could change depending on the machine & version number - but with PDF you get what you intended to show. I think that has always been the winning proposition for PDF
Re: Show HN: Generate pdf with gitbook or mdbook url
#5Or you can just run the target in Sphinx, and get better organized output with real table of contents and indexes - it supports a huge number of output formats: https://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/master/usage/builders/index.ht... If you must use markdown, there's always https://mystmd.org which integrates directly into Sphinx, modulo minor bits of weirdness due to markdown being a mishmash of extensions.
I suspect this is for creating PDFs for ChatGPT, not for generating project documentation from source. That's the usecase that immediately came to mind, since a lot of Rust content (for example) is in mdbook format.
Re: Show HN: Generate pdf with gitbook or mdbook url
#6Sometimes I feel we're never going to be rid of PDFs. Everything can be converted into one, but you can't reliably convert from it. They're going to be here in 200 years.
indeed, such a sad state of affairs when one of the most popular digital document formats isn't really a proper digital document, but a hack to resemble the bad old paper days
Re: Show HN: Generate pdf with gitbook or mdbook url
#7Sometimes I feel we're never going to be rid of PDFs. Everything can be converted into one, but you can't reliably convert from it. They're going to be here in 200 years.
They have become a reliable way in office & legal processes around the world in terms of fixed layouts & content immutability (in a sort of layman view. Knowing Acrobat Pro exists & PDF editing too - but I'd argue that in majority of cases its not as trivial as modifying text file or markup sources, with intention to change or forge). Correct me if wrong but Word/LibreOffice layouts could change depending on the mach…
Word offers content immutability with its read-only mode, not sure how much layout change there is, though how much pixel perfection do you need in legal processes that are mostly pure text?
Re: Show HN: Generate pdf with gitbook or mdbook url
#8Sometimes I feel we're never going to be rid of PDFs. Everything can be converted into one, but you can't reliably convert from it. They're going to be here in 200 years.
I look at PDF like a virtual sheet of paper. Once you "print" to it, abandon any hope of getting things back out.
This sounds like a bad thing, but we need some kind of way to say "this is the final presentation no matter what".
Re: Show HN: Generate pdf with gitbook or mdbook url
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have become a reliable way in office & legal processes around the world in terms of fixed layouts & content immutability (in a sort of layman view. Knowing Acrobat Pro exists & PDF editing too - but I'd argue that in majority of cases its not as trivial as modifying text file or markup sources, with intention to change or forge). Correct me if wrong but Word/LibreOffice layouts could change depending on the mach…
Word offers content immutability with its read-only mode, not sure how much layout change there is, though how much pixel perfection do you need in legal processes that are mostly pure text?
If you have a 300-page legal document, and other sources reference passages, e.g., a paragraph on page 234. It would be unreliable if over the years or depending on the viewer it moves to another page.
Re: Show HN: Generate pdf with gitbook or mdbook url
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have become a reliable way in office & legal processes around the world in terms of fixed layouts & content immutability (in a sort of layman view. Knowing Acrobat Pro exists & PDF editing too - but I'd argue that in majority of cases its not as trivial as modifying text file or markup sources, with intention to change or forge). Correct me if wrong but Word/LibreOffice layouts could change depending on the mach…
Word offers content immutability with its read-only mode, not sure how much layout change there is, though how much pixel perfection do you need in legal processes that are mostly pure text?
Does read-only mode not suffer from some global settings? Also, what happens when the reading instance doesn't have all the used fonts for example?