From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,666bab5bfbdf30c2 X-Google-NewGroupId: yes X-Google-Attributes: gida07f3367d7,domainid0,public,usenet X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news2.google.com!news4.google.com!feeder.news-service.com!news.mixmin.net!news2.arglkargh.de!nuzba.szn.dk!news.jacob-sparre.dk!pnx.dk!not-for-mail From: "Randy Brukardt" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Generating PDFs with Ada Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2011 14:40:31 -0600 Organization: Jacob Sparre Andersen Message-ID: References: <4d2908c7$0$22120$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net> <9f23e50a-2c2c-4ccc-bd56-f6ffdc6c7ee7@37g2000prx.googlegroups.com> <82aaj73jsr.fsf@stephe-leake.org> <9c34f2cf-cb2c-4433-a6f7-b4c19d842fee@t35g2000yqj.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: static-69-95-181-76.mad.choiceone.net X-Trace: munin.nbi.dk 1294951234 12398 69.95.181.76 (13 Jan 2011 20:40:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@jacob-sparre.dk NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2011 20:40:34 +0000 (UTC) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5931 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.5931 Xref: g2news2.google.com comp.lang.ada:17388 Date: 2011-01-13T14:40:31-06:00 List-Id: "Ludovic Brenta" wrote in message news:9c34f2cf-cb2c-4433-a6f7-b4c19d842fee@t35g2000yqj.googlegroups.com... > Randy Brukardt wrote on comp.lang.ada: >> It would be useful to note that .rtf files are less stable than .doc >> files. >> We continued to have bizarre formatting problems with the Ada standard >> until >> someone noticed that they went away if we took the .rtf files and resaved >> them as .doc files. Moreover, an attempt to save the files as .rtf >> crashes >> Word (all versions that I've tried). But even with those problems, it's a >> whole lot easier to write .rtf and generate .pdf from that than to try to >> do >> it in one step. >> >> Moreover, that allows the input to the formatter to be plain text, with >> all >> of the version control advantages that entails. (And version control is >> very >> important for a large, long-lived document like the Ada standard.) And it >> allows the creation of multiple related documents (RM and AARM) from a >> single source base. And we can also automatically create some of the >> annexes >> from the source (like the attribute, pragma, and syntax annexes). > > I see we're on the same wavelength as regards professional document > management: plain text, version control, separation of style from > content, etc. > > Personally I would have chosen Texinfo, TeX, LaTeX or DocBooc instead > of RTF. These formats are not ISO standards but they are stable and > open. It is possible that generating HTML and PDF from such sources > was not yet an option in 1998, though. In hindsight, I might have as well. But part of the reason that I chose .rtf was because that was one of the few formats accepted by ISO for standards. .Doc being the other. (Please insert joke here about an International Standards Organization requiring documents in a propriatary, non standard format. Everyone else has. :-) Interestingly, the *actual* format that the Ada standards have been submitted in has been .PDF. Although ISO recently tried to again insist on all documents being in their own closed template for Microsoft Office and in .Doc files. Which only works with US versions of Office. What's "International" about that?? Anyway, that has again been beaten back - the supposed reason that they wanted to do this is so that they could modify the standards if they needed to do so. But editors don't want ISO secretaries mucking with their standards! What a wonderful way to have a disaster (imagine deleting "not" from some text). Randy.