Stupid question of the (next?) month

Stupid question of the (next?) month

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Hello,

here I am, with my usual absurd requests ... today I'd like to
know how to do the following.

I'd like each page to have an 'indefinite' length, clipped each
time at a certain sectionlevel. For example, each page would be a
chapter long (yes, not the other way round). TeX can do things
like this, but there's the usual 5.7 meters limit (about 25 A4
pages). Of course such a thing only makes sense in PDF production
mode, because DVI viewers are not friendly with multiple page
sizes per document.

So the questions are:

(1) How to setup ConTeXt to create each physical page at chapter
boundary (within the TeX limit)? (I know PDFs support different
page sizes in the same document, so this is fine.)

[Things like footnotes & such would become 'marginal'; all float
placements would become 'here'; how to deal with columns?]

(2) Can ConTeXt+pdf-e-TeX+Perl get around the TeX limit? (By
postprocessing an appropriate PDF file.)

--
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

Re: Stupid question of the (next?) month

[Hans Hagen]

At 11:12 PM 10/23/2001 +0200, Giuseppe Bilotta wrote:

>I'd like each page to have an 'indefinite' length, clipped each
>time at a certain sectionlevel. For example, each page would be a
>chapter long (yes, not the other way round). TeX can do things
>like this, but there's the usual 5.7 meters limit (about 25 A4
>pages). Of course such a thing only makes sense in PDF production
>mode, because DVI viewers are not friendly with multiple page
>sizes per document.
>
>So the questions are:
>
>(1) How to setup ConTeXt to create each physical page at chapter
>boundary (within the TeX limit)? (I know PDFs support different
>page sizes in the same document, so this is fine.)

this is quite doable, but i wonder if you want to know the perverse details

>[Things like footnotes & such would become 'marginal'; all float
>placements would become 'here'; how to deal with columns?]

hm, so you would need to use local footnotes, which is no problem

>(2) Can ConTeXt+pdf-e-TeX+Perl get around the TeX limit? (By
>postprocessing an appropriate PDF file.)

there is also a pdf limit

actually, you can build a pretty large box in tex as long as no 
calculations > maxdimen are donw; tex only checks calculations, so 
technically you can do something: \setbox0=\vbox{\dorecurse{10K}{craplines} 
and then start splitting (this is one way to make A0 posters with 50 
columns -)

Hans
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re[2]: Stupid question of the (next?) month

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Wednesday, October 24, 2001 Hans Hagen wrote:

HH> At 11:12 PM 10/23/2001 +0200, Giuseppe Bilotta wrote:

>>(1) How to setup ConTeXt to create each physical page at chapter
>>boundary (within the TeX limit)? (I know PDFs support different
>>page sizes in the same document, so this is fine.)

HH> this is quite doable, but i wonder if you want to know the perverse details

Maybe not the technical details right now, but if there is a
non-perverse interface to set it up ...

>>(2) Can ConTeXt+pdf-e-TeX+Perl get around the TeX limit? (By
>>postprocessing an appropriate PDF file.)

HH> there is also a pdf limit

I didn't know about that (or maybe I did? GSView complains for
pages > 2m, but still renders them; wonder about Acrobat ...)

--
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta

crazy answer to: Stupid question of the (next?) month

[Hans Hagen]

At 11:12 PM 10/23/2001 +0200, Giuseppe Bilotta wrote:
>Hello,
>
>here I am, with my usual absurd requests ... today I'd like to
>know how to do the following.
>
>I'd like each page to have an 'indefinite' length, clipped each
>time at a certain sectionlevel. For example, each page would be a
>chapter long (yes, not the other way round). TeX can do things
>like this, but there's the usual 5.7 meters limit (about 25 A4
>pages). Of course such a thing only makes sense in PDF production
>mode, because DVI viewers are not friendly with multiple page
>sizes per document.

you're lucky that i can watch the news and write macros at the same time so 
here's the answer to your absurd request:

% output=pdftex

% a rather pervert and idiot style for g.b.

\definepapersize [idiot] [width=20cm,height=400cm]

\startsetups main

   \setuppapersize
     [idiot] [idiot]

   \setuplayout
     [height=middle,topspace=2cm,header=2cm,footer=2cm,
      width=middle]

\stopsetups

\startsetups page

   \setbox\normalpagebox=\vbox{\unvbox\normalpagebox}

   \adddimenmacro
     \ht\normalpagebox
     2\topspace
     \headerheight
     \footerheight
   \to \CrazyHeight

   \definepapersize
     [crazy] [width=20cm,height=\CrazyHeight]

   \setuppapersize
     [crazy] [crazy]

\stopsetups

\setups [main]

\prependtoks \setups [page] \to \mainoutput
\appendtoks  \setups [main] \to \mainoutput

\starttext

% hm, i would like to use the not yet public fake
% text macros here -)

\dorecurse {6}
    {\getrandomnumber \pervert {3} {5}
     \dorecurse {\pervert}
       {\input tufte
        \placefigure {} {}
        \getrandomnumber \evenmorepervert {1} {3}
        \dorecurse {\evenmorepervert}
          {\input tufte \par}}
     \page }

\stoptext

Hans

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: crazy answer to: Stupid question of the (next?) month

[Giuseppe Bilotta]

Wednesday, October 24, 2001 Hans Hagen wrote:

HH> you're lucky that i can watch the news and write macros at the same time so 
HH> here's the answer to your absurd request:

[snip]

That's great! One cannot do columns and such, but that's exactly
what I wanted. Wondefull. Thank you very much.

Will test it a little more (that is, I'll try so see which
situations bang into a \vsize calc)

--
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta