[LMH] Re: Lispm Chineual XML version

[Hans Huebner]

Hi Nick,

On 8/17/06, Nick Papadakis <nick@mit.edu> wrote:
> I'd like to suggest that, in addition to the XML version, there be a
> PDF version (with appropriate hyperlinks).  The reason is that it
> will be much more convenient for people to grab a copy and read it if
> it is a single file in a common interchange format.  While the XML is
> a winning idea idea, PDF may well turn out to be more long-lived and
> accessible (despite its many shortcomings).
>
> If there is anything that the history of the lispm should teach us,
> it is that winning ideas are often ignored by the larger world.  I'd
> hate to see this stuff get lost again because it was converted from
> one obscure format (bolio) to a nicer but equally obscure format
> (custom XML).  Adding the PDF is a fairly easy way of hedging the bet.

I did the custom XML conversion exactly because it is an open format
that will be very easy to convert to anything else, in addition to
being editable.  The HTML XSL stylesheet I wrote can be seen as an
example how to convert the XML format to something else, HTML in this
case.  Doing the same for PDF will be easy for someone versed in PDF
generation and XSLT.

Directly converting from Bolio to PDF would certainly be possible and
if anyone wants to do this, I'll happily share my findings about Bolio
as well as the Common Lisp source code for my converter program.
Also, the original Bolio source code may be available on one of the
tapes Brad Parker is in the process of investigating.

If you only want to see a PDF file with hyperlinks, I'd suggest that
you use the XML files and generate PDF from that.  This will be far
easier than directly working with Bolio, as I put quite some effort to
make the cross references very explicit and easy to parse.  If
anything in the XML files is missing, it can be added easily.

I personally think that PDF is a format well-suited for printing, but
for printing the files would need to be converted including
cross-references with line numbers.  Thus, please correct me if I'm
wrong, a full typesetting system would be needed to create PDF
documents that are useful to online browsing as well as printing.
That is certainly an interesting task, but way beyond what I can offer
to do.

Cheers,
Hans