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Sile, a typesetting system inspired by TeX and InDesign

sile-typesetter.org

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Re: Sile, a typesetting system inspired by TeX and InDesign

#21

Post by efaref »

carlob wrote: post #18
zvrba wrote: post #13

I have looked at the PDF manual linked to from the homepage. If that PDF is produced bye Sile itself, I'm not impressed because the rendered text looks crowded. Perhaps the choice of the font is at fault, perhaps the engine lacks TeX's font kerning, perhaps.. Whatever the reason, the output is IMO ugly.

The manual shows about 80 characters per line. It should be around 66 for optimal readability. One of the things I like about LaTeX is that you don't have to know about this stuff, and since it's not entirely trivial to change the page margins it's really hard for a novice to make such a mistake.

It can't even get consistent line spacing in the table of contents. See http://imgur.com/ejg2FTS

Re: Sile, a typesetting system inspired by TeX and InDesign

#22

Post by maaarghk »

zvrba wrote: post #13

I have looked at the PDF manual linked to from the homepage. If that PDF is produced bye Sile itself, I'm not impressed because the rendered text looks crowded. Perhaps the choice of the font is at fault, perhaps the engine lacks TeX's font kerning, perhaps.. Whatever the reason, the output is IMO ugly.

I agree, I opened that PDF and the first page has two off-centre lines... not particularly impressed. And the line heights and kerning are all over the place. It's actually straight up terrible. Sorry, OP.

Re: Sile, a typesetting system inspired by TeX and InDesign

#23

Post by robot_scream »

zvrba wrote: post #13

I have looked at the PDF manual linked to from the homepage. If that PDF is produced bye Sile itself, I'm not impressed because the rendered text looks crowded. Perhaps the choice of the font is at fault, perhaps the engine lacks TeX's font kerning, perhaps.. Whatever the reason, the output is IMO ugly.

I agree, doesn't look attractive. Spacing is off and text is waaay to close to the image in the example here: http://imgur.com/udshoSy

Re: Sile, a typesetting system inspired by TeX and InDesign

#25

Post by agos »

efaref wrote: post #21
carlob wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The manual shows about 80 characters per line. It should be around 66 for optimal readability. One of the things I like about LaTeX is that you don't have to know about this stuff, and since it's not entirely trivial to change the page margins it's really hard for a novice to make such a mistake.

It can't even get consistent line spacing in the table of contents. See http://imgur.com/ejg2FTS

skimmed briefly. page 16 has four words in it.

Re: Sile, a typesetting system inspired by TeX and InDesign

#26

Post by adrianmsmith »

zvrba wrote: post #13

I have looked at the PDF manual linked to from the homepage. If that PDF is produced bye Sile itself, I'm not impressed because the rendered text looks crowded. Perhaps the choice of the font is at fault, perhaps the engine lacks TeX's font kerning, perhaps.. Whatever the reason, the output is IMO ugly.

Agreed; look at section 2.1 of the documentation:

- There are two sections demarked with horizontal lines, but the upper one is further to right right.

- The horizontal lines spill over into the right margin on the first one.

- There is an unreasonable amount of space above and below the second one.

- The paragraph "To begin with" looks stranded; it's indented because the rule is no doubt all apart from the first paragraph must be indented but it looks strange in this case.

Re: Sile, a typesetting system inspired by TeX and InDesign

#27

Post by matthewmacleod »

MrDosu wrote: post #24

News@11: Haphazard rewrite of popular standard piece of software in random scripting language X revolutionizes the field, says naive programmer.

How about "Idle HN commentator wastes time mocking other people's work instead of offering any constructive input at all."

Seriously. There are no claims about 'revolutionising' anything, just some comparisons with existing software.

Re: Sile, a typesetting system inspired by TeX and InDesign

#28

Post by gjm11 »

simoncozens wrote: post #20
juriansluiman wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the PDF manual file[0] it is at glance almost similar to Latex. \begin[papersize=a4]{document} \chapter{Hi there} Hello world \include[src=chapter2] \end{document} Unfortunately, the power of Latex for maths display and vectorized graphs are completely absent. It also states image handling is still rudimentarily available (only PNG files, for example). I also am not really impressed by the type setting from the…

Two clarifications: Image handling is rudimentary at present but I'm switching to different PDF engine (see http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/166261/would-it-make-... and http://www.sile-typesetter.org/2014/09/24/Whats-happening-in... ) which will vastly improve image support. Yes, SILE is an acronym but to be perfectly honest I can't remember what for. I promise it was good. "Simon's Improved Layout Engine" is…

> Yes, SILE is an acronym but to be perfectly honest I can't remember what for.

Would I be wrong to bet at substantial odds that the SIL portion of it, at least, was for http://www.sil.org/ ?

Re: Sile, a typesetting system inspired by TeX and InDesign

#29

Post by hbbio »

zvrba wrote: post #13

I have looked at the PDF manual linked to from the homepage. If that PDF is produced bye Sile itself, I'm not impressed because the rendered text looks crowded. Perhaps the choice of the font is at fault, perhaps the engine lacks TeX's font kerning, perhaps.. Whatever the reason, the output is IMO ugly.

The rendering of another open source project in the "TeX-made-after-Y2K" category, Patoline, is much more appealing:

http://patoline.org/patobook.pdf

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