LaTeX-version of the emacs-manual

[twiki]

Where can I find a LaTeX-version of the emacs-manual?
LaTeX is more flexible than texinfo for customizations;
versions of the emacs-manual on the GNU web site
are not suitable for printing/reading

THANX in ADVANCE!

[Carson Chittom]

If you're interested in customizing the manual, I'm not sure what to
tell you; but if you just want to print it, both PostScript and PDF
versions are at http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/emacs.html (and
DVI, for that matter).

[twiki]

Postscript and PDF versions are not editable.
I would like to a) change the font and margins b) exclude certain chapters c) add the topics ... and print ... so I would like a LaTeX source.
Versions docbook obtained from sources texinfo (makeinfo through) are difficult to be processed.

[Carson Chittom]

Have you tried texi2latex[1]? The texinfo site says that it's
unmaintained, but it might be worth a shot.

[1] http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/texi2latex

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 20.09.2012 um 19:51 schrieb twiki:

> I would like to a) change the font and margins b) exclude certain chapters c) add the topics ... and print ... so I would like a LaTeX source.
> Versions docbook obtained from sources texinfo (makeinfo through) are difficult to be processed.

See whether pandoc can convert from Texinfo to LaTeX well enough: http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc.

--
Greetings

Pete

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
– Elbert Hubbard

[Joost Kremers]

EN:SiS(9)

Peter Dyballa wrote:
> See whether pandoc can convert from Texinfo to LaTeX well enough: http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc.

pandoc doesn't handle texinfo as an input format...

--
Joost Kremers joostk...@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht

[twiki]

I downloaded the texinfo-source of emacs-manual from:

http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/texi/emacs.texi.tar.gz

After unpacking emacs.texi.tar.gz I converted emacs.texi
to emacs.docbook with:

makeinfo --docbook emacs.texi -o emacs.db

Pandoc handles the conversion DocBook -> LaTeX but the command

pandoc -f docbook -t latex -s emacs.db -o emacs.tex

does not work!

[Thorsten Jolitz]

twiki <lap...@yahoo.it> writes:

> Pandoc handles the conversion DocBook -> LaTeX but the command
>
> pandoc -f docbook -t latex -s emacs.db -o emacs.tex
>
> does not work!

Does "emacs.tex" already exists when you try the command? I remember that
I had to 'touch' the target files first before using pandoc.

--
cheers,
Thorsten

[twiki]

> Does "emacs.tex" already exists when you try the command? I remember that

No

The error I get is:

Pandoc: emacs.db: hGetContents: invalid argument (invalid UTF-8 byte sequence)

Suggestions?

[twiki]

> Does "emacs.tex" already exists when you try the command? I remember that

[Joost Kremers]

EN:SiS(9)

your input file emacs.db is not utf-8 encoded. pandoc simply foregoes
the entire encoding mess and assumes everything is utf-8.

makeinfo doesn't seem to have a way of specifying the output encoding,
so the easiest way to go about this is probably to open emacs.db in
emacs and save it as utf-8 (C-x RET f).

HTH

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Joost Kremers <joostk...@yahoo.com>
> Date: 21 Sep 2012 08:29:50 GMT

>
> makeinfo doesn't seem to have a way of specifying the output encoding,

??? What's wrong with @documentencoding and the --enable-encoding
switch to makeinfo?

[twiki]

I have converted the file emacs.db in emacs-utf-8.db with iconv:

iconv -f ISO-8859-1 -t UTF-8 emacs.db > emacs-utf-8.db

...but when I launch pandoc with the new file... the pc crashes!!!

I decided to give up LaTeX: too complicated to achieve with docbook!
(But why the GNU not produce documentation directly in LaTeX?)

Does anyone know an easy way to convert docbook
in a few editable format?

[Bastien]

twiki <lap...@yahoo.it> writes:

> versions of the emacs-manual on the GNU web site
> are not suitable for printing/reading

Why?

--
Bastien

[twiki]

> Why?

I do not want to learn texinfo but emacs!

From the texinfo source can only change
margins (for A4) but not the font.

And then I would be able to add and remove pieces
of the manual and other parts taken from the network
before printing!

[twiki]

[Bastien]

twiki <lap...@yahoo.it> writes:

>> Why?
>
> I do not want to learn texinfo but emacs!

You said:

> versions of the emacs-manual on the GNU web site
> are not suitable for printing/reading

So my question was "why do you think the emacs-manual manual
on the GNU website is not suitable for printing/ reading?"

> From the texinfo source can only change
> margins (for A4) but not the font.

Well, if you are serious about learning Emacs, you can't be
serious about the font of the printed manual being a problem.

> And then I would be able to add and remove pieces
> of the manual and other parts taken from the network
> before printing!

Too bad your printer/system does not allow you to print only
parts of a document! :)

Anyway, good luck with the time sink,

--
Bastien

[twiki]

> So my question was "why do you think the emacs-manual manual
> on the GNU website is not suitable for printing/ reading?"

Fonts too small make reading unpleasant
and from what I read, with texinfo you can
only change the font from 10pt to 11pt

> Well, if you are serious about learning Emacs, you can't be
> serious about the font of the printed manual being a problem.
>

The readability is important for me!

>
> Too bad your printer/system does not allow you to print only
> parts of a document! :)
>

I wish I could translate parts of the text and to add
considerations, tricks taken from the Internet and more ...
all this before you print!

>
> Anyway, good luck with the time sink,
>

I thought it was an easy thing to do ... as well as obvious!

You're right ... looks amazing having to lose so much time!

However, it seems to me reasonable to be able to modify the source
documentation of an open-source program using
a typesetting-language as powerful as LaTeX!

[twiki]

> So my question was "why do you think the emacs-manual manual
> on the GNU website is not suitable for printing/ reading?"

Fonts too small make reading unpleasant
and from what I read, with texinfo you can
only change the font from 10pt to 11pt

> Well, if you are serious about learning Emacs, you can't be
> serious about the font of the printed manual being a problem.
>

The readability is important for me!

>

> Too bad your printer/system does not allow you to print only
> parts of a document! :)
>

I wish I could translate parts of the text and to add
considerations, tricks taken from the Internet and more ...
all this before you print!

>

> Anyway, good luck with the time sink,
>

[Bastien]

twiki <lap...@yahoo.it> writes:

> Fonts too small make reading unpleasant
> and from what I read, with texinfo you can
> only change the font from 10pt to 11pt

See attached patch against texinfo.tex on how
to change the size.

[Peter Münster]

On Fri, Sep 21 2012, twiki wrote:

> Fonts too small make reading unpleasant
> and from what I read, with texinfo you can
> only change the font from 10pt to 11pt

Isn't it possible to change the font with plaintex macros?

> I wish I could translate parts of the text and to add
> considerations, tricks taken from the Internet and more ...
> all this before you print!

I don't know texinfo, but I'm sure that you only need to learn about
10 macros for that... One hour learning and you're done.


(OT: Before switching from texinfo to LaTeX, consider switching to ConTeXt!)

--
Peter

[twiki]

>
> Isn't it possible to change the font with plaintex macros?
>

...quoting from:

http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/html_node/Fonts.html

[...]
Texinfo does not at present have commands to switch
the font family to use, or more
general size-changing commands. [...]

> I don't know texinfo, but I'm sure that you only need to learn about
> 10 macros for that... One hour learning and you're done.

One hour???

- To extract the file from source texinfo TeX?

- To learn how to insert images in a format suitable for TeX?

- To convert my LaTeX / RTF / TXT notes to TeX?

I think it's quite complicated (at least for me)
and at the point of the question is another:

It is possible to get a file from source texinfo LaTeX?

The procedure I followed was:

texinfo sources -> makeinfo -> docbook -> Pandoc -> LaTeX

but it did not work! I understand that it is too complicated
as a transformation of formats and so I wanted to see if
you can have a larger and more powerful format (of texinfo)
to work... and to send to print a
===customized version=== of the Emacs manual!

THANX !!!

[twiki]

>
> Isn't it possible to change the font with plaintex macros?
>

...quoting from:

http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/html_node/Fonts.html

[...]
Texinfo does not at present have commands to switch
the font family to use, or more
general size-changing commands. [...]

> I don't know texinfo, but I'm sure that you only need to learn about
> 10 macros for that... One hour learning and you're done.

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 20.09.2012 um 21:25 schrieb Joost Kremers:

> pandoc doesn't handle texinfo as an input format...

Then there's texi2html, a Perl script which converts Texinfo source files to HTML output; http://www.nongnu.org/texi2html.

--
Greetings

Pete

$ sumascii BILL GATES
B I L L G A T E S
66+ 73+ 76+ 76+ 71+ 65+ 84+ 69+ 83 = 663

and add 3 because he's Bill Gates the third.

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

() twiki <lap...@yahoo.it>
() Fri, 21 Sep 2012 03:31:46 -0700 (PDT)

I wish I could translate parts of the text and to add
considerations, tricks taken from the Internet and more ...
all this before you print!

Which parts?

Why not use two Emacs instances? One to play with, one to read from.
For either or both you can choose a suitably pleasant onscreen font.

It seems Emacs' current support for annotations (of info files) is poor
to middling: <http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/AnnotationMode>, so if you
are a programmer, you might be able to get due piccioni con una fava :-D
by advancing the state of the art, learning Emacs Lisp as well in the
process.

[cc trimmed]

--
Thien-Thi Nguyen ..................................... GPG key: 4C807502
. NB: ttn at glug dot org is not me .
. (and has not been since 2007 or so) .
. ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES .
........... please send technical questions to mailing lists ...........

[John Bokma]

Bastien <b...@altern.org> writes:

> twiki <lap...@yahoo.it> writes:

>> From the texinfo source can only change
>> margins (for A4) but not the font.
>
> Well, if you are serious about learning Emacs, you can't be
> serious about the font of the printed manual being a problem.

The font can surely be a hurdle for people to read something no matter
how serious they want to read something.

--
John Bokma j3b

Blog: http://johnbokma.com/ Perl Consultancy: http://castleamber.com/
Perl for books: http://johnbokma.com/perl/help-in-exchange-for-books.html

[John Bokma]

Thien-Thi Nguyen <t...@gnuvola.org> writes:

> Why not use two Emacs instances? One to play with, one to read from.
> For either or both you can choose a suitably pleasant onscreen font.

Looks like twiki and I have some things in common. I also don't like to
read a lot from screen. I've the printed Emacs manual here and I prefer
to read it away from the computer /most/ of the time. That way there's
less distraction and less need of fiddling to 'get it" instead of
actually reading the documentation.

[Bastien]

John Bokma <jo...@castleamber.com> writes:

> The font can surely be a hurdle for people to read something no matter
> how serious they want to read something.

Did you try what I sent? Does it solve your problem?

--
Bastien

[John Bokma]

You wrote:

> Well, if you are serious about learning Emacs, you can't be
> serious about the font of the printed manual being a problem.

Nice creative replying... not.

[Jay Belanger]

John Bokma <jo...@castleamber.com> writes:

> Bastien <b...@altern.org> writes:
>
>> John Bokma <jo...@castleamber.com> writes:
>>
>>> The font can surely be a hurdle for people to read something no matter
>>> how serious they want to read something.
>>
>> Did you try what I sent? Does it solve your problem?
>
> You wrote:

He wrote the following, which should be tried:
(The rest of this message is from a previous reply by Bastien)

> Fonts too small make reading unpleasant
> and from what I read, with texinfo you can
> only change the font from 10pt to 11pt

See attached patch against texinfo.tex on how
to change the size.

diff --git a/doc/texinfo.tex b/doc/texinfo.tex
index 9631275..763319e 100644
--- a/doc/texinfo.tex
+++ b/doc/texinfo.tex
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
% Load plain if necessary, i.e., if running under initex.
\expandafter\ifx\csname fmtname\endcsname\relax\input plain\fi
%
-\def\texinfoversion{2012-01-03.18}
+\def\texinfoversion{2012-09-21.12}
%
% Copyright (C) 1985, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995,
% 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006,
@@ -1965,7 +1965,7 @@ end
\def\definetextfontsizexi{%
% Text fonts (11.2pt, magstep1).
\def\textnominalsize{11pt}
-\edef\mainmagstep{\magstephalf}
+\edef\mainmagstep{1400}
\setfont\textrm\rmshape{10}{\mainmagstep}{OT1}
\setfont\texttt\ttshape{10}{\mainmagstep}{OT1TT}
\setfont\textbf\bfshape{10}{\mainmagstep}{OT1}
@@ -2098,7 +2098,7 @@ end
\def\definetextfontsizex{%
% Text fonts (10pt).
\def\textnominalsize{10pt}
-\edef\mainmagstep{1000}
+\edef\mainmagstep{1400}
\setfont\textrm\rmshape{10}{\mainmagstep}{OT1}
\setfont\texttt\ttshape{10}{\mainmagstep}{OT1TT}
\setfont\textbf\bfshape{10}{\mainmagstep}{OT1}

[John Bokma]

Jay Belanger <jay.p.b...@gmail.com> writes:

> John Bokma <jo...@castleamber.com> writes:
>
>> Bastien <b...@altern.org> writes:
>>
>>> John Bokma <jo...@castleamber.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> The font can surely be a hurdle for people to read something no matter
>>>> how serious they want to read something.
>>>
>>> Did you try what I sent? Does it solve your problem?
>>
>> You wrote:
>
> He wrote the following, which should be tried:

At first he dismissed the issue.

[twiki]

>
> At first he dismissed the issue.
>

I had forgotten this post! I have not tried to work on the
formatted version of the Emacs manual, I downloaded the manual in
ASCII and I'm cutting and pasting from this version. At the end I
will print my custom version LaTeX-formatted (or
OpenOffice-formatted), adding a lot of screenshots which I
believe are more synthetic and explanatory... a picture is worth
a thousand words!

[Bastien]

Hi John,

John Bokma <jo...@castleamber.com> writes:

>> He wrote the following, which should be tried:
>
> At first he dismissed the issue.

Why the fuss? I first asked "Why?" because I could not understand
what was making the manual not suitable for printing/reading.

The answer was not really replying to this "why", so I asked again,
and tried to provide a useful answer afterwards.

I acknowledge my sentence "You can't be serious etc..." was perhaps
a bit too provocative, I apologize to the OP if it has been perceived
as such.

Best,

--
Bastien

[Bastien]

Hi,

If you can, it would be nice to put this edited version of the
manual online so that other users can read/print it.

Thanks!

--
Bastien