"Code Sandwiches"

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Lars T. Kyllingstad" <public at kyllingen.NOSPAMnet> wrote in message 
news:ilaa5k$2vls$2 at digitalmars.com...
>
> PDF ensures a consistent look across different platforms and viewers,
> because the layout is fixed and fonts can be embedded.

That's a significant part of what makes it good for printing and terrible 
for everything else.


> Embedding formulas as images isn't really an option, because you want
> them to be in the same font as (or a font that looks good with) the
> document's main font.

That strikes me as worrying over a trivial detail. Is the formula's font 
*really*the point, or it is the formula itself?


> As I see it, the only viable option for embedding math in HTML is to use
> MathML.

"Viable" and "perfect" are two very different things. If you feel that the 
formulas *MUST* be in the same font as the rest, then it sounds like you 
mean "perfect" not "viable".


> Anyway, besides ensuring good-looking formulas, a fixed layout means that
> you are in full control over other typesetting issues such as
> hyphenation.

Again, that *belongs* in the realm of the reader, the reader's machine and 
the document viewer. This isn't old-school dead-tree media we're talking 
about here. In printed form, the viewing device/app and the publication 
format are inherently the exact same thing, so the distinction is irrelevent 
and presentation details like that may as well be handled by the producer. 
But with computers, the two things are inherently very different.

The bottom line is, viewing a document should work as well as it reasonably 
can on *anything* it's viewed on, any app, any device, any person. Yes, that 
might *seem* to indicate letting the producer control every detail, but 
outside of paper (where there *is* only one "app/device" the document is 
viewed with) that doesn't work: Obviously, different viewers are going to 
have different needs, different optimal uses, etc. Is it at all reasonable 
for the content producer to take into account every viewer/device or even 
personal preference that it's going to come across, even just in the 
present, let alone the future? Certainly not (heck, that would be lke the 
days before device drivers). Is it even conceivably *possible* with PDF? Not 
remotely. The *only* thing that has the proper information to appropriately 
format a document is the viewer itself, the device itself, etc. *Not* the 
content producer.


> And finally, I have yet to see any web browser or word processor that
> even comes close to LaTeX with regards to typesetting quality.  Show me a
> PDF file created by LaTeX and a PDF version of a Word document, and I'm
> pretty sure I can tell at a glance which is which.
>

I don't doubt that. But show *me* the same two documents and *if* I can tell 
them apart I'm pretty sure I could tell that I don't care which is which. 
Seriously, does anyone without a typesetting background ever even notice 
such things?


> I don't understand your big gripe with PDF readers either.  Maybe Adobe
> just makes a crappy one?

They do. A *very* crappy one. That's why I use FoxIt instead.


> I use the one that comes with the GNOME
> desktop, Evince, and it works perfectly.  (It's open source, too!)  As we
> speak I have it open on a 1422-page PDF document, and I can scroll
> without any lag, search for text (and math, even), and basically do
> anything I can in a web reader.
>

Does it stick page breaks in the middle of a document? Do the page breaks 
serve *any* useful purpose outside printed form? Can web pages link to 
specific parts of the document? When the PDF is from a book that has smaller 
inner margins than outer margins, do the left/right margns keep changing 
form one page to the next? If you resize the window, can you still read it 
without introducing horizontal scrolling? If you find the chosen font 
difficult to read, or you merely prefer a different one, can you change it? 
Are comparable programs as widespread on mobile devices as web browsers are? 
Do they integrate well with the mobile device's browser?