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Pandoc

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181–190 of 213 posts

Re: Pandoc

#181

Post by Nullabillity »

tonyarkles wrote: post #96
BeetleB wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If one is going to write LaTeX code anyway, it seems easier and cleaner to use LaTeX all the way, move all the boilerplate along with the personal template to say, a file named preamble.tex, and \input{preamble.tex} in the documents. Not sure why you think it has to be that way. I author LaTeX documents using org mode. Org mode handles most of the boilerplate, and I can still put pretty much any custom LaTeX within…

Yup. I’ve got a pandoc template for doing org-latex-pdf conversion, as well as some org templates for common documents that my clients need. Hack away on the document in org (which I’m probably going to be doing anyway, since the rest of my life is in there too), and then when it’s ready to hand off, turn it into a PDF using a shell script. My absolute favourite moment with that flow was a client who wanted one as a…

Why not use Org's built-in org->latex->pdf exporter? AFAIK Pandoc isn't compatible with many of the more interesting Org features, such as Babel.

Re: Pandoc

#182

Post by jimhefferon »

voltagex_ wrote: post #109
CJefferson wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latex can't produce web output, which is increasingly a target I want. Also, Latex can't produce any output which is accessible to blind people (other than giving them the raw LaTeX). The PDFs latex produces are probably the least accessible format available (much worse than a word proeuced pdf, or some html). This matters to me, and should matter more to other people (in my opinion).

>Also, Latex can't produce any output which is accessible to blind people This sounds like it should definitely be a target of a grant. I guess most government organisations around the world are using Word et al, which isn't too bad these days accessibility wise (AFAIK). Can you provide a small example of a LateX document that produces an inaccessible PDF?

Accessibility is a big current push from the TeX Users Group. The president, Boris Veytsman, has made moving it forward a big goal. I know that a lot of people are working on aspects of that, but the name I hear the most is Ross Moore, who I have heard talk on making the output be PDF/A-3a compliant. I understood that it is a long way there.

Re: Pandoc

#183

Post by fntlnz »

rotorblade wrote: post #130

I tried to use pandoc a while ago to convert the latex-sources of arxiv.org documents to epub, since those are often much more comfortable to read on small devices than pdfs. The problem I had was that latex was turned into images, but changing the font-size of the reader did not change the size of the images, making the text readable, but the maths barely readable. This is something I would love to see happen though…

Take a look at arxiv vanity https://www.arxiv-vanity.com/

Re: Pandoc

#184

Post by CJefferson »

baldfat wrote: post #176
CJefferson wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latex can't produce web output, which is increasingly a target I want. Also, Latex can't produce any output which is accessible to blind people (other than giving them the raw LaTeX). The PDFs latex produces are probably the least accessible format available (much worse than a word proeuced pdf, or some html). This matters to me, and should matter more to other people (in my opinion).

BUT that is what makes Pandoc powerful. You convert your latex or your whatever into: (Can we please add Racket's Scribble? It is by far the reason why Racket has the best documentation of any language. https://docs.racket-lang.org/scribble/ ) Markdown, reStructuredText, textile, HTML, DocBook, LaTeX, MediaWiki markup, TWiki markup, TikiWiki markup, Creole 1.0, Vimwiki markup, OPML, Emacs Org-Mode, Emacs Muse, txt2ta…

Well, except LaTeX probably isn't the best base format to write in -- Pandoc's LaTeX parser isn't very good, it doesn't parse (from a quick check) any of the papers I've written. They've tried hard, but I think it's a losing battle, particularly once people start using a large range of packages.

That's not surprising -- it's basically impossible to "parse" LaTeX, as it's defined by execution.

Re: Pandoc

#185

Post by BeetleB »

foo101 wrote: post #102
BeetleB wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If one is going to write LaTeX code anyway, it seems easier and cleaner to use LaTeX all the way, move all the boilerplate along with the personal template to say, a file named preamble.tex, and \input{preamble.tex} in the documents. Not sure why you think it has to be that way. I author LaTeX documents using org mode. Org mode handles most of the boilerplate, and I can still put pretty much any custom LaTeX within…

It isn't clear to me whether you are saying that Pandoc is necessary or if you are saying that Pandoc is unnecessary and LaTeX alone is sufficient for all purposes. I think your parent comment was saying that LaTeX alone is sufficient. You also seem to be saying that LaTeX alone is sufficient while using Org mode. Would you please clarify if I am interpreting your comment correctly or not?

>It isn't clear to me whether you are saying that Pandoc is necessary or if you are saying that Pandoc is unnecessary and LaTeX alone is sufficient for all purposes.

I'm not saying either. The parent said it's easier and cleaner to use LaTeX all the way. I was pointing out that it is easier to write in a format like Org mode and export to LaTeX (whether via Pandoc or Org mode's built-in exporter).

Of course LaTeX is "sufficient". It is also, IMO, painful.

Re: Pandoc

#186

Post by roblabla »

mb2100 wrote: post #151

Occasional pandoc contributor here, AMA :-) Just a few links: - Where everything is documented: http://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html - If you have questions or suggestions: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/pandoc-discuss - Contributing to pandoc is also a great way to get your feet wet with Haskell. In my experience, very supportive community. See http://pandoc.org/CONTRIBUTING.html and for good first issues: https:/…

Hey, just a one-time contributor here (fixed a small bug in the wikitext parser), I have to say that the community is really, really great! I had never done any haskell before, but with just a little guidance from the IRC channel (#pandoc on freenode), I was put on the right track and submitted my small PR, which was merged quickly.

Overall great experience. Thanks for the great tool :).

Re: Pandoc

#187

Post by sevensor »

smohare wrote: post #74
Schiphol wrote: post #16

I do all of my academic writing in pandoc. As compared to LaTeX this means no boilerplate (yet you can still use full LaTeX syntax for equations and the like) and, if the publisher 'needs' a Word file, you are one click away from providing it. All with plain text files that you can put under version control, get meaningful diffs, etc. It's just great.

I’ve never understood the impetus for not using full LaTeX in an academic contex, given that the boiler plate is so minimal and presumably one has a built up a personal template over time. For blog posts and notes I see the appeal, since the boilerplate can be a hindrance to spontaneous writing.

I wrote my dissertation using Pandoc. It might seem that the LaTeX boilerplate is minimal, but Markdown is even more minimal, and it preempts the urge to fuss with your layout. Writing in Markdown means that you can wave your hand at the document and say, "It's a draft, I'll fix the formatting once I'm sure I even want this material." Afterwards, fixing the layout is really easy because you can drop raw LaTeX in wherever you need to, and you haven't wasted countless hours laying out a float you later end up cutting.

Re: Pandoc

#188

Post by sevensor »

dr_coffee wrote: post #18
Schiphol wrote: post #16

I do all of my academic writing in pandoc. As compared to LaTeX this means no boilerplate (yet you can still use full LaTeX syntax for equations and the like) and, if the publisher 'needs' a Word file, you are one click away from providing it. All with plain text files that you can put under version control, get meaningful diffs, etc. It's just great.

What's your workflow for inserting and managing references

It was a couple of years ago that I wrote my dissertation using Pandoc, so things may have changed. At the time, I started out using pandoc-citeproc with my BibTeX database, but eventually I needed more control over formatting and I switched to writing \cite everywhere. Even with hundreds of references, it only took an afternoon, so I'm happy I did it the way I did. My approach with Pandoc is to use it until you have to invest LaTeX-level effort into making it do what you want. At that point, swapping in LaTeX is rarely painful. Often you can get away with editing Pandoc's generated LaTeX and pasting it back in to your source.

Re: Pandoc

#189

Post by neves »

paule89 wrote: post #159
mb2100 wrote: post #151

Occasional pandoc contributor here, AMA :-) Just a few links: - Where everything is documented: http://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html - If you have questions or suggestions: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/pandoc-discuss - Contributing to pandoc is also a great way to get your feet wet with Haskell. In my experience, very supportive community. See http://pandoc.org/CONTRIBUTING.html and for good first issues: https:/…

everytime I see a project using google groups, i think it is already dead. Gladly yours seems to be used quite often. At least you can search it even years later, compared to an irc or slack channel.

IRC channels and mailing list are excellent for informal questioning about a project. You can search for guidance, see if a feature would be well received, and receive a green light before starting to implement something.

Other day I thought about contributing to Yarn, the Javascript package manager, but the only way that I found to communicate with the developers were issues in GitHub. Since I didn't know if the feature I wanted would be well received, I just quit.

Re: Pandoc

#190

Post by neves »

smohare wrote: post #74
Schiphol wrote: post #16

I do all of my academic writing in pandoc. As compared to LaTeX this means no boilerplate (yet you can still use full LaTeX syntax for equations and the like) and, if the publisher 'needs' a Word file, you are one click away from providing it. All with plain text files that you can put under version control, get meaningful diffs, etc. It's just great.

I’ve never understood the impetus for not using full LaTeX in an academic contex, given that the boiler plate is so minimal and presumably one has a built up a personal template over time. For blog posts and notes I see the appeal, since the boilerplate can be a hindrance to spontaneous writing.

I didn't use LaTex for years, is it still a hell to make tables? And also very difficult to use templates to generate good looking documents that doesn't like an academic paper?
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