Fixing PDF worksheets

[Oscar Levin]

TL;DR: I want to redesign how printouts in PDF output look, which will break existing worksheet layouts.  What should we do about that?

Lots of work has been done to make the HTML version of worksheets (and other printouts) work well, and I really like being able to post the accessible version of my course materials and have the printouts be printable directly.  Not having to maintain two output formats is really nice.  Plus, in VS Code and PreTeXt Plus, you now get live previews of the printout view so you can tweak workspace very easily.

But some people want to use PDFs for their worksheets.  The problem is, it is currently really difficult to get both version looking good at the same time.  The algorithms for workspace and pagebreaks are very different.  Font size is different.  PDF doesn't get the headers/footers that you can get from HTML (or specify in your publication file).  

I think it's time to bring the PDF output in line with the now better HTML.  I've been playing with ways to get roughly the same workspace and page breaking.  However, this brings us to a pretty big issue: anyone who relies on their carefully designed page fitting for PDF will have to completely rework their workspace to get something matching what they have.  

What should we do?  Of course folks could just not upgrade, but they will want other features eventually, I'm sure.  A publication switch for old-style latex-formatted worksheets?  Warn that old-style won't be maintained (it is already broken in a number of places anyway)?  What do you all think?

There are other questions to consider too, such as: HTML uses 11pt font for all worksheets (although this might be adjustable soon); should PDF worksheets switch to this size as well?  Should we turn off page numbers for worksheets (why would you print out a worksheet that is on page 203?)?  Other things I haven't thought of?