Re: Re: Alternatives for reST -> PDF

On 3/29/06, Ben Finney <bignose+hates-spam <at> benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> "G. Milde" <g.milde <at> web.de> writes:
>
> Something that can:
>
>   - run as a pipeline (LaTeX on stdin, PDF on stdout) by default
>
>   - allow any specified path for input file and/or output file
>
>   - hide all the cruft that LaTeX processing creates, leaving no extra
>     files unless asked
>
>   - properly handle Unicode, standard fonts, standard filenames and
>     locations, and other conventions that seem poorly supported by
>     LaTeX
>
>   - ensure that the process ends with either an unambiguous error
>     state, or a complete PDF rendering of the input
>
> Currently pdflatex does *none* of these, and is thus a bad tool
> (largely because it fails to sufficiently abstract the underlying bad
> tools).

I totally agree.  I even started writing such a tool, I just want to
be able to say rst2pdf.py <myfile.tex> and only see <myfile.pdf> as
output.  That's it, no crap, nothing else generated.

I wrote the tool, copying my file to a temporary directory, and its
dependent files.  I ran into a bunch of issues with file
inputs/includes from LaTeX, and then I got derailed onto some other
open source stuff, and never finished it.  When I finish it, I will
simply delete the temporary files in the source location.

Also, the tool must be able to plop some custom input into the
generated LaTeX file.  I always find myself editing it by hand when I
want to make a "nice" document.

Another avenue that is on my todo list is a nroff writer.  That would
do the job for a lot of simple documents, and produce a
different-looking output from that of LaTeX.

Another issue: I talked to Dave about it, multiple times, and he's
quite hung-up on not including this tool in the standard docutils
tools, for some reason (I can't remember which).  Dave?

-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.Net email is sponsored by xPML, a groundbreaking scripting language
that extends applications into web and mobile media. Attend the live webcast
and join the prime developer group breaking into this new coding territory!
http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid0944&bid$1720&dat1642