Re: Edit a ConTeXt generated document with Adobe Acrobat Professional

[John Haltiwanger <john.haltiwanger@gmail.com>]

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On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 3:18 PM, Martin Schröder <martin@oneiros.de> wrote:

> 2011/7/14 John Haltiwanger <john.haltiwanger@gmail.com>:
> > Pandoc, so I'm not familiar with Context's xhtml capacities.
>
> MkIV can create XML. :-)
>

That is something I have heard much more than I have seen.

If it can so easily do so, could a wizard please intervene and provide a
recipe for producing XHTML from standard Context input?[^1] I have no doubt
it can, but documentation of this relative necessity in this age of
multi-output publishing is suboptimal.[^2] I swear that this information
will go down throughout the ages as a conduit for better typography (and the
wiki page dedicated to this process will become a keystone of expanded
possibility in the future).

Cecil, I don't think its fair to constrain yourself from ever using Context
again. What does 'competely independent' mean?

If you have been asked to hand over layout decisions, the best is to
reproduce your document in XHTML, copy it into a word processor, and let
them proceed with their own desing in their proprietary WYSIWYG software.

Even if they just want to make textual changes, this is probably still be
your best bet. You can then relatively easily convert them back to Context
(a matter of re-mapping text into Context). There is a plan I have to
produce an easier-for-point-and-clickers interface to collaborate on high
quality Context based layouts, but the time hasn't appeared to materialize
it yet.

If you search through the archives for 'pandoc' you will see that many of us
have chosen to abstract ourselves from direct dependence on Context for our
document 'coding'. There is a tangible flexibility provided by writing in a
visually semantic preformat like Markdown. It helps during the editing
stages because it is easy to generate other formats that people are more
familiar with (OpenOffice can be converted to Word---then it is a matter of
'backporting' changes to the Context source).

If they weren't clear about planning to take on this design
responsibility--which they should have long before the deadline--than I feel
it is the fault of the editors and not the fault of Context. Under such
conditions I would have written text for these people in something they
understand, like an word processor document (LibreOffice can save as MS Word
easily enough).

Sorry to hear you are having trouble with this. I know what it is like to
face the edge of a deadline.

PS. For what it is worth, I do not think it would be _too_ hard to create a
Context to Markdown translator.[^3] Since the backend supports XML, it
should be able to map to a different semantic markup without much trouble..
right?

[^1]: No CSS necessary, just classes and/or ids mapped to environment names.
Apologies to anyone who has answered this question before: just point me
towards where the answer is and I will make sure it finds its way to a
prominent place on the wiki.

[^2]: I understand that there is a description at the wiki, but it is many
years old, maybe older than LuaTeX (the history says it is from 2007).
Something fresher is in order I think.


>
> Best
>    Martin
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to
> the Wiki!
>
> maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl /
> http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
> webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
> archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
> wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
>

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___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________