←back to thread

Accessible open textbooks in math-heavy disciplines

(richardzach.org)
235 points volemo | 1 comments | 29 Mar 25 16:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.487s | source
Show context
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 #
goosedragons ◴[30 Mar 25 00:22 UTC] No.43519963[source]▶
You can. Compile to DVI then use dvipng. There's not much reason to do it anymore. PDFs take up less space, you can copy the text, do hyperlinks.
replies(2): >>43520372 #>>43522782 #
1. xworld21 ◴[30 Mar 25 09:37 UTC] No.43522782[source]▶
> Compile to DVI then use dvipng

or dvisvgm, which will produce scalable images. However, images are even worse than PDF in terms of accessibility, which is what the article is talking about.