Re: Future of DSSSL: What about PDF?

[Matthias Clasen <clasen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > Or said differently, if an environment provide direct PDF production
> > from a
> > DSSSL script, is this useful or not?
> 
> Useful, but not because of the directness, but because of the increased
> power.
> This is the process I would like:
> 
> document ---> dsssl engine <---> formatter ---> pdf/ps/win32 gdi/X
> 
> Simply cutting Tex and TexPdf out would just reduce processing time, but
> upgrading the computer is more cost-effective. Having a tightly-coupled
> formatter improves the quality of output, not processing efficiency. Take a
> look at general-indirect-sosofo and page-model - I don't believe they can be
> implemented via tex (they certainly can't be implemented via rtf)
> 

I have sort of implemented page-numbers and general-indirect sosofo
with the TeX-backend a long time ago. The basic idea is using a two-pass
approach like latex: the backend writes out an auxiliary sgml file containing
the page number information and this is fed back into the next jade run
via sgml-parse. Add some glue scheme code to provide the information in
the same syntax as in the standard ( general-indirect-sosofo etc) 

Matthias

-- 
Matthias Clasen, 
Tel. 0761/203-5606
Email: clasen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mathematisches Institut, Albert-Ludwigs-Universitaet Freiburg


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