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Accessible open textbooks in math-heavy disciplines

(richardzach.org)
235 points volemo | 2 comments | 29 Mar 25 16:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.494s | source
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oh_my_goodness ◴[29 Mar 25 18:14 UTC] No.43517392[source]▶
Uh ... where is it written that LaTeX can only provide pdf output?

Turn that around. Thought experiment. Say we work like pigdogs for 5 years and we completely replace all of Latex except the part that produces pdf. What value have we provided to users at that point?

replies(1): >>43518141 #
xworld21 ◴[29 Mar 25 19:51 UTC] No.43518141[source]▶
The article talks about converting LaTeX to HTML, which is feasible today, if only buggy and fragile. This is the textbook the author talks about, which is written in LaTeX (but compiled with LaTeXML instead of pdflatex): https://forallx.openlogicproject.org/html/
replies(1): >>43519590 #
oh_my_goodness ◴[29 Mar 25 23:10 UTC] No.43519590[source]▶
It does. But why can't LaTex produce png or something? Why does it have to be either pdf or pretty much abandon the idea of typesetting? Or am I misunderstanding?
replies(2): >>43519963 #>>43522578 #
1. raegis ◴[30 Mar 25 08:55 UTC] No.43522578[source]▶
By the way, LaTeX and TeX existed long before PDFs were ubiquitous. A common workflow in the 1990s and prior was

TeX/LaTeX -> DVI -> PostScript -> printer

And DVI stands for "device independent", so the idea was you can take a DVI and convert it to any format. PDFs just eventually became the dominate format.

replies(1): >>43522886 #
2. oh_my_goodness ◴[30 Mar 25 09:58 UTC] No.43522886[source]▶
Yeah, I remember.