*-TeX (Star-TeX) v0.7.1 w/ pure-Go PDF generation

[Sebastien Binet]

hi there,

Star-TeX v0.7.1 is out:

- https://pkg.go.dev/star-tex.org/x/t...@v0.7.1
- https://git.sr.ht/~sbinet/star-tex

After a (very) long hiatus, development of Star-TeX has resumed.
Star-TeX is a pure-Go TeX engine, built upon/with modernc.org/knuth.

v0.7.1 brings pure-Go TeX → PDF generation.

Here are examples of generated PDFs:

- https://git.sr.ht/~sbinet/star-tex/tree/v0.7.1/item/testdata
- https://git.sr.ht/~sbinet/star-tex/tree/v0.7.1/item/dvi/dvipdf/testdata

PDF generation is still a bit shaky (see #24), but that's coming from
the external PDF package we are using rather than a Star-TeX defect per se.

We'll try to fix that in the next version. Now we'll work on bringing
LaTeX support to the engine (working directly on modernc.org/knuth).

Cheers,
-s

---
#24: https://todo.sr.ht/~sbinet/star-tex/24

[Patrick]

Hello Sebastien,

this is a really awesome project, thank you very much. I have been thinking a long time how to port TeX (especially PDFTeX) to Go. I have given up on it but at least tried to mimic the algorithmic behaviour in https://github.com/boxesandglue/boxesandglue 

Patrick

[Sebastien Binet]

Hallo Patrick,

On Tue Apr 15, 2025 at 11:59 CET, Patrick wrote:
> Hello Sebastien,

[...]

> I have given up on
> it but at least tried to mimic the algorithmic behaviour
> in https://github.com/boxesandglue/boxesandglue

yes, I had stumbled upon your nice set of packages.
they gave me some clues on the type1 handling front :)

> this is a really awesome project, thank you very much. I have been
> thinking a long time how to port TeX (especially PDFTeX) to Go.

really, most of the magic is coming from the WEB→Pascal→Go translation packages from Jan.

FYI, we are working on the LaTeX stuff over there:

- https://gitlab.com/cznic/knuth/-/issues/6

cheers,
-s