conversion to PDF and ucommon packages

conversion to PDF and ucommon packages

[Václav Haisman]

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I have noticed that sometimes a problem with LaTeX/PDF output could be 
solved by using some less common LaTeX packages. The solution is rejected 
because the package is less common.

What about allowing the user to choose between two output modes for LaTeX, 
for the purpose of this discussion, let's call them basic -- the existing 
status quo -- and extended. Let's allow the extended output mode to use all 
LaTeX packages that are available, say, through all TeX Live packages 
installation on some Debian (or Ubuntu?).

-- VH

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Re: conversion to PDF and ucommon packages

[John MACFARLANE]

If we did have two latex writers, I'd favor making the other
one customizable:  all macros are pandoc-specific, and
defined in the template's preamble.  This would give people
maximum flexibility to adjust output...you could even use
plain tex definitions of the macros for maximum compilation
speed and minimum dependencies (see https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/issues/1541).

+++ Václav Haisman [Nov 04 15 01:58 ]:
>   I have noticed that sometimes a problem with LaTeX/PDF output could be
>   solved by using some less common LaTeX packages. The solution is
>   rejected because the package is less common.
>   What about allowing the user to choose between two output modes for
>   LaTeX, for the purpose of this discussion, let's call them basic -- the
>   existing status quo -- and extended. Let's allow the extended output
>   mode to use all LaTeX packages that are available, say, through all TeX
>   Live packages installation on some Debian (or Ubuntu?).
>   -- VH
>
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Re: conversion to PDF and ucommon packages

[Joost Kremers]

On Mi, Nov 04 2015, John MACFARLANE <jgm-TVLZxgkOlNX2fBVCVOL8/A@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> If we did have two latex writers, I'd favor making the other
> one customizable:  all macros are pandoc-specific, and
> defined in the template's preamble.  This would give people
> maximum flexibility to adjust output...you could even use
> plain tex definitions of the macros for maximum compilation
> speed and minimum dependencies (see https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/issues/1541).

The idea of having just pandoc-specific macros sounds great, but I think
there are a few things to think about.

First, a pure-TeX writer would probably be more trouble than it's worth.
TeX is pretty low-level and I doubt there are many Markdown users that
really know enough TeX to be able to customise a TeX template. I know I
certainly can't, and I consider myself quite a capable LaTeX (but not
TeX!) user.

For example, here's how you can create tables in TeX:

http://www.volkerschatz.com/tex/halign.html

As the code snippets show, customising the basic table macro \halign
requires quite a lot of TeX knowledge.

Also, Plain TeX does not support Unicode. You'd need XeTeX or LuaTeX for
that, but I have no idea how much that would add to a basic TeX install.

So, if you add a fully-customisable (La)TeX writer, I think it makes
more sense to have it default to using LaTeX, with an option to use
plain TeX instead if a user is so inclined. (I don't think the writer
would have to be modified for this if you use custom macros. You'd just
have to have two templates, one defining the custom macros using LaTeX
and one defining them using plain TeX.) That way, it would be useful to
a larger audience.




-- 
Joost Kremers
Life has its moments