commit 827cef72af244289f68855b8245d9c5e4a42a31e
parent 700f569cd51f43daeba2953032ba7d32bc88e0ce
Author: Tomas Hlavaty <tom@logand.com>
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2020 08:13:55 +0200
add README
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| A | README | | | 78 | ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ |
1 file changed, 78 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
diff --git a/README b/README
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+emacs-pdf.el -- Emacs library to print buffer to PDF file.
+
+* Example configuration
+
+ (require 'pdf)
+
+* Example usage
+
+ M-x pdf-buffer
+
+or
+
+ M-x pdf-region
+
+in example.txt will create example.txt.pdf file.
+
+Some variables can be customized in pdf and ps groups.
+
+* Why?
+
+PDF have (unfortunatelly) become the standard format for exchanging
+documents.
+
+Emacs does not have a simple way of creating PDF documents yet.
+
+There are many ways to create PDF documents in Emacs currently but all
+of them require installation of huge external dependencies.
+
+Printing from Emacs also pretty much depends on unsafe, unportable and
+obsolete PostScript.
+
+* What
+
+emacs-pdf.el solves the above issues by creating PDF documents
+directly in Emacs without any external dependencies.
+
+The code is rather short but already takes it quite close towards the
+goal. Pages are automatically broken and counted, page headers and
+footers are supported and a few things like font type or size can be
+customized.
+
+* TODO
+
+unicode support: The biggest missing piece is support for non-ASCII
+characters. Emacs has already the best support for international
+input and output of any software I know. It would be nice to extend
+that also to PDF generation. I myself use several input methods and
+characters not supported by PDF out of the box. This is complex but
+essential.
+
+per file customizations: Should this be stored in a separate file
+(instead of in-file syntax)? I would really like to customize page
+headers and footers and font type and size per file.
+
+justification: It would be nice to justify paragraphs. This would
+require understanding of font metrics and will bring quite a lot of
+complexity.
+
+box justification: Justify the whole box right but justify the text
+inside the box left. Does it need special syntax or would a
+convention be enough?
+
+ruler: It would be nice to suport tab-stop-list or something like
+that.
+
+multiple columns: It would be nice to output text in more columns. It
+should be possible to control where exactly to turn it on and off so
+maybe we need some kind of syntax for this? If there is syntax for
+this kind of stuff, what about syntax for justification and ruler?
+
+colors: It would be nice to support color output. What would be a
+good way to have Emacs in reverse video (screen with black background)
+but still support output to white paper without fiddling with faces
+too much?
+
+tables, pictures etc: Is there a reasonable subset for rich documents
+without inventing new document format and reinventing TeX, roff etc?
+Or just use abw or odt files directly?
