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ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

blog.arxiv.org

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Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#71

Post by digging »

layer8 wrote: post #36
jez wrote: post #33

It would be neat if they offered submitters the chance to upload their own HTML version alongside the PDF version, instead of always relying on an automatic conversion process. - I can imagine authors feeling frustrated if someone reaches out about a problem in the HTML version of their paper, but they have no way to correct it except by hoping that a change to the PDF fixes a change to the generated HTML. Easier to…

They’d have to define and document a “safe” subset of HTML, and implement a filter/checker for it. Otherwise we’d end up with papers containing ads and tracking and XSS vulnerabilities and whatnot.

Those are issues with JavaScript, not HTML. Wouldn't filtering out iframes pretty much keep us in the clear?

Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#72

Post by IlliOnato »

burkaman wrote: post #30
shrimpx wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like clicking a reference adds the hash to the URL but doesn't scroll to the reference. If you load the hash URL directly in the browser you get a 404 page...

https://browse.arxiv.org/html/2312.12451v1#bib.bib1 works, but https://browse.arxiv.org/html/2312.12451v1/#bib.bib1 doesn't.

Yeah, it seems like a bug in HTML generator...

Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#73

Post by JumpCrisscross »

tobias2014 wrote: post #35
FredPret wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The contrast is massive. I'm much more likely to read the html version; that PDF is deeply off-putting in some hard to define way. Maybe it's the two columns, or the font, or the fact that the format doesn't adjust to fit different screen sizes.

This is very interesting, because for me it's just the opposite. In particular the two column layout is just more readable and approachable for me. The PDF version also allows for a presentation just as the authors intended. I guess it's good that they offer both now.

Do you work extensively with LaTeX?

Two columns is good, albeit annoying on mobile. But the font. The typeface kills me, and almost every LaTeX-generated document sports it.

Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#74

Post by saurik »

miki123211 wrote: post #46
tarboreus wrote: post #39

One of the reasons is to make the papers more accessible to people with disabilities, especially the blind. I participated in a conference they hosted on this a few months ago, I recommend taking a look at the recordings if you're interested in thinking on this. https://accessibility2023.arxiv.org/

Blind person here, can confirm this. Reading PDFs with a screen reader is bad, reading PDFs that come from LaTeX is worse, reading LaTeX math is pretty much impossible. All the semantic info you need is just thrown away. You can make decently accessible PDFs but it's lots of work, you need Acrobat on the producer' side and might also need it on the consumer's side. Free tools don't even come close. There's also the f…

Huh. It would seem like, of all the things which should make it easy to generate the correct accessibility information, the pipeline of compiling a paper from source code in LaTeX should nail it... maybe we should all pitch in to some pool to pay someone to put in the required effort to connect all the dots?

Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#75

Post by IlliOnato »

eviks wrote: post #51
diffeomorphism wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be neat if they offered submitters the chance to upload their own HTML version alongside the PDF version, instead of always relying on an automatic conversion process. Please don't. Then you will have a mismatch between the source and the "own html" which ruins the point of uploading the source.

Pdf isn't the source

But the PDF is also generated. LaTeX is the single source of truth.

Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#76

Post by cozzyd »

degenerate wrote: post #63
cozzyd wrote: post #23

doesn't work great with long author lists... https://browse.arxiv.org/html/2312.12907v1

The PDF is worse, so there is no simple answer to this: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2312.12907v1.pdf At least the HTML version pairs each author with their affiliations, instead of the PDF which has all the names on page 1, and all the affiliations on page 2. That's completely unreadable.

The PDF is better because I'm trained to scroll past the author list. That takes forever on the html version .

Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#77

Post by WendyTheWillow »

I’m so far left wanting for an app that gives me a way to easily track and consume newly published work of a given topic. The existing apps are not great, and maybe this change will make it easier to provide better “reader” views, and possibly even tts (I like to listen+read).

Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#78

Post by saurik »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #73
tobias2014 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very interesting, because for me it's just the opposite. In particular the two column layout is just more readable and approachable for me. The PDF version also allows for a presentation just as the authors intended. I guess it's good that they offer both now.

Do you work extensively with LaTeX? Two columns is good, albeit annoying on mobile. But the font. The typeface kills me, and almost every LaTeX-generated document sports it.

Hilariously, I would probably tolerate the HTML version a lot better if it had the font from the PDF (and FWIW, the answer for me is "no: I don't work with LaTeX at all... I just read a lot of papers").

Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#79

Post by IlliOnato »

jez wrote: post #33

It would be neat if they offered submitters the chance to upload their own HTML version alongside the PDF version, instead of always relying on an automatic conversion process. - I can imagine authors feeling frustrated if someone reaches out about a problem in the HTML version of their paper, but they have no way to correct it except by hoping that a change to the PDF fixes a change to the generated HTML. Easier to…

No, it would not. It's critically important that there is only one "logical" article, albeit with different representations. In other words, a single "source of truth".

With "sideloading" of HTML there is no way in general to make sure that the contents of LaTeX (and PDF) on one side and HTML on the other side is the same.

Re: ArXiv now offers papers in HTML format

#80

Post by IlliOnato »

ansk wrote: post #47

When I open a large pdf on arxiv (100+ MB, not uncommon for ML papers focused on hi-res image generation), there is a significant load time (10+ seconds) before anything is rendered at all other than a loading bar. Does anyone know what the source of this delay is? Is it network-bound or is Chrome just really slow to render large PDFs? Do PDFs have to be fully downloaded to begin rendering? In any case, this delay is…

It may be even that the time is taken to generate a PDF.

The format in which articles are submitted and stored in arXive is LaTeX. PDF is automatically generated from it.

Probably arXiv does some caching of PDFs so they don't have to be generated anew every time they are requested, but I don't know how this caching works.

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