RTF for emacs

RTF for emacs

[James Freer]

I read some time ago that there was development taking place for providing 
emacs with word processing i.e. formatting iirc RTF.

Is this taking place or has the interest declined. Reading posts a while back 
on 'how emacs can be improved' (or similar header). I was wondering as one 
thing I'd love to see in linux would be a cli RTF editor or graphical. I found 
so many bugs in Abiword and LO-writer that I don't want to use them.

thanks
james

Re: RTF for emacs

[Rasmus]

James Freer <jessejazza3.uk@gmail.com> writes:

> I read some time ago that there was development taking place for
> providing emacs with word processing i.e. formatting iirc RTF.
>
> Is this taking place or has the interest declined. Reading posts a
> while back on 'how emacs can be improved' (or similar header). I was
> wondering as one thing I'd love to see in linux would be a cli RTF
> editor or graphical. I found so many bugs in Abiword and LO-writer
> that I don't want to use them.

I'm not aware of any RTF initiatives.  Did you try Org?  It outputs to
odt, html and LaTeX.

-- 
Don't panic!!!

Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Rasmus <rasmus@gmx.us> writes:

> I'm not aware of any RTF initiatives.  Did you try
> Org?  It outputs to odt, html and LaTeX.

Yeah. Question to the OP: Why do you want "RTF"?

For e-mails, Usenet posts, README files, everything
short and neat - plain text will do (is superior,
because it is so easy to deal with for everyone, and so
fast to do so, and so enjoyable to type...).

For the odd very-fancy-looking manual or MS degree
techno-science thesis - LaTeX obviously, which you can
enter plain in Emacs (no need for Org) and
compile.

PDFs are great for advanced documents (with special
notation etc.) and for large documents (e.g., books)
that are expected to be read by humans - documents that
are likely to be printed (and, when done, not expected
to change a lot save for an occasional additional
chapter or so, and typos fixed).

A lot of PDFs shouldn't be PDFs, though (as I see
it). A two-page essay with 4-6 paragraphs and no
illustrations or special notation - why use PDF for
this? Use plain text: faster, lighter, and much easier
for everyone else to use in whatever way they prefer.

HTML for webpages (of course): again type direct in
Emacs (again no need for Org).

If you are ever so lucky as to write a brand-new tool
for some Unix-system - groff (GNU runoff or roff) -
groff to do the man page (saliva in my mouth just
thinking of it). (Also the GNU ancient-empire "info"
tool has a markup system which I'm unfamiliar with.)

Really, what *is* the use-case for "RTF"?

But I'm sorry I can't answer your question - but the
reason I can't is I never saw the need to use it.

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Robert Thorpe]

> Really, what *is* the use-case for "RTF"?

What about writing a letter to your bank?  Or writing a short technical
document that has to include diagrams?  Plain text can't really do these
things.  Latex can do these things, but it's complicated.  Whenever I
need to use Latex I have to look at lots of examples from the internet
or the last time I used it.  Since I never write large reports using
Latex it's syntax never sticks in my head.

I use a word processor for these kind of things a present, Libreoffice.  I'd
rather not do that though, it's clumsy.  If I had the time I'd help with
adding RTF editing and/or word-processing to Emacs.

Something I'm considering is using info format.  The info makeup is very
simple (for the GNU manuals it's compiled from sources in a TeX dialect
called TeXInfo, but it can be written directly).  Another possibility is using HTML.

BR,
Robert Thorpe

Re: RTF for emacs

[Charles Philip Chan]

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Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com> writes:

Hi Robert:

> What about writing a letter to your bank?  Or writing a short technical
> document that has to include diagrams?  Plain text can't really do these
> things.

Of course is can with a markup language.

> Latex can do these things, but it's complicated.  Whenever I need to
> use Latex I have to look at lots of examples from the internet or the
> last time I used it.  Since I never write large reports using Latex
> it's syntax never sticks in my head.

Org-mode[1] is your answer. It can do everything you listed with a simple
markup language.

Charles

Footnotes: 
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Org-mode
    http://orgmode.org/
    
-- 
"We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds."
(Linus Torvalds about the superiority of Linux on the Amsterdam
Linux Symposium)

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Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Charles Philip Chan <cpchan@bell.net> writes:

> Org-mode [1] is your answer. It can do everything you
> listed with a simple markup language.

I never understood the Org-mode hype but it must be
good as so many people talk about it. Is it like a
one-to-many mapping so there is one Org-mode markup and
then it gets you a website, a PDF, whatever, by
generating HTML (and CSS), LaTeX, etc., as an
in-between stage? Is that it? Or what is it? If it is,
how can you trust it?  Won't you scratch your head all
the time thinking, "can Org-mode really write as good
HTML/LaTeX/whatever as I?"

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Charles Philip Chan]

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Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

Hi Emanuel:

> I never understood the Org-mode hype but it must be good as so many
> people talk about it. Is it like a one-to-many mapping so there is one
> Org-mode markup and then it gets you a website, a PDF, whatever, by
> generating HTML (and CSS), LaTeX, etc., as an in-between stage? Is
> that it?

Yes, it is a one to many mapping. However, publishing is only a small
part of org-mode. To quote from the introduction of the org-mode manual:

,----
| Org is a mode for keeping notes, maintaining TODO lists, and project
| planning with a fast and effective plain-text system. It also is an
| authoring system with unique support for literate programming and
| reproducible research.
| 
| Org is implemented on top of Outline mode, which makes it possible to
| keep the content of large files well structured. Visibility cycling and
| structure editing help to work with the tree. Tables are easily created
| with a built-in table editor. Plain text URL-like links connect to
| websites, emails, Usenet messages, BBDB entries, and any files related
| to the projects.
| 
| Org develops organizational tasks around notes files that contain lists
| or information about projects as plain text. Project planning and task
| management makes use of metadata which is part of an outline node. Based
| on this data, specific entries can be extracted in queries and create
| dynamic agenda views that also integrate the Emacs calendar and diary.
| Org can be used to implement many different project planning schemes,
| such as David Allen’s GTD system.
| 
| Org files can serve as a single source authoring system with export to
| many different formats such as HTML, L A TEX, Open Document, and
| Markdown. New export backends can be derived from existing ones, or
| defined from scratch.
| 
| Org files can include source code blocks, which makes Org uniquely
| suited for authoring technical documents with code examples. Org source
| code blocks are fully functional; they can be evaluated in place and
| their results can be captured in the file. This makes it possible to
| create a single file reproducible research compendium.
| 
| Org keeps simple things simple. When first fired up, it should feel like
| a straightforward, easy to use outliner. Complexity is not imposed, but
| a large amount of functionality is available when needed. Org is a
| toolbox. Many users usilize only a (very personal) fraction of Org’s
| capabilities, and know that there is more whenever they need it.
| 
| All of this is achieved with strictly plain text files, the most
| portable and future-proof file format. Org runs in Emacs. Emacs is one
| of the most widely ported programs, so that Org mode is available on
| every major platform.
`----

Here is a very abridged list of it's features:

     http://orgmode.org/features.html

or take a look at the manual itself:

   http://orgmode.org/org.html

The pdf version of the manual is 281 pages long!

> Or what is it? If it is, how can you trust it?  Won't you scratch your
> head all the time thinking, "can Org-mode really write as good
> HTML/LaTeX/whatever as I?"

Well try it out for yourself and see. There is very fine gain control of
publishing. For example, for LaTeX and pdf:

    http://orgmode.org/org.html#LaTeX-and-PDF-export

and for html:

    http://orgmode.org/org.html#HTML-export

etc.

Regards,
Charles

-- 
"I'd crawl over an acre of 'Visual This++' and 'Integrated Development
That' to get to gcc, Emacs, and gdb.  Thank you."
(By Vance Petree, Virginia Power)

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Re: RTF for emacs

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

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() Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com>
() Sat, 24 May 2014 01:21:19 +0100

   Or writing a short technical
   document that has to include diagrams?

What kind of diagrams?  Does RTF handle diagrams at all?
Unabashed plug: <http://www.gnuvola.org/software/aa2u/>.

-- 
Thien-Thi Nguyen
   GPG key: 4C807502
   (if you're human and you know it)
      read my lisp: (responsep (questions 'technical)
                               (not (via 'mailing-list)))
                     => nil

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Re: RTF for emacs

[Rusi]

On Saturday, May 24, 2014 11:03:45 AM UTC+5:30, Thien-Thi Nguyen wrote:
> () Robert Thorpe
> () Sat, 24 May 2014 01:21:19 +0100
> 
>    Or writing a short technical
>    document that has to include diagrams?
> 
> What kind of diagrams?  Does RTF handle diagrams at all?
> Unabashed plug: <http://www.gnuvola.org/software/aa2u/>.

Looks useful
However not quite working
This

+-------+
|	|
|	|
|	|
|	|
|	|
|	|
|	|
|	|
+-------+

produces

┌───────╴
│	│
│	│
│	│
│	│
│	│
│	│
│	│
│	│
└───────╴

[aa2u version 1.8]

Re: RTF for emacs

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

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() Rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com>
() Sat, 24 May 2014 00:54:40 -0700 (PDT)

   This

   +-------+
   |	|
   |	|
   |	|
   |	|
   |	|
   |	|
   |	|
   |	|
   +-------+

   produces

   ┌───────╴
   │	│
   │	│
   │	│
   │	│
   │	│
   │	│
   │	│
   │	│
   └───────╴

Thanks for trying out ascii-art-to-unicode.el and reporting this.

Yeah, aa2u is confused by the tab character (U+09).
If you ‘M-x untabify’ first, it should do better.
In the meantime, i've added a blurb to HACKING:

 http://git.sv.gnu.org/cgit/emacs/elpa.git/tree/packages/ascii-art-to-unicode/HACKING

Now, what would be TRT to do?

-- 
Thien-Thi Nguyen
   GPG key: 4C807502
   (if you're human and you know it)
      read my lisp: (responsep (questions 'technical)
                               (not (via 'mailing-list)))
                     => nil

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artist-mode/aa2u (was: Re: RTF for emacs)

[Emanuel Berg]

Holy smoke! I was able to do this is zero-time -
compare that to getting intuitive with ImageMagick or
Dia XML! Only problems I had - aa2u translated the dash
in "best-effort" as well (perhaps unavoidable, but very
minor so) - also, in artist-mode, can you grab a side
of a rectangle and move it left-right (or up down)?
Also, when typing, that typically screws up the figure,
so can you make it insert text while simultaneously
eating whitespace at the other end?  Amazing stuff!

PS. It will be interesting how this mails turns out. DS

┌─────────────────┐                            ┌────────────────────┐
│ critical core:  │                            │ best-effort core:  │
│ hierarchical    │                            │ media player       │
│ scheduler       │                            │                    │
│                 │                            │                    │
├─────────────────┤     shared memory bus      ├────────────────────┤
│ cache (LLC)     ├─────────────┬──────────────┤ cache (LLC)        │
└─────────────────┘             │              └────────────────────┘
                            ┌───┴────┐
                            │ shared │
                            │ DRAM   │
                            └────────┘

--
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: artist-mode/aa2u

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

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() Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se>
() Sat, 24 May 2014 20:45:36 +0200

   Only problems I had - aa2u translated the dash
   in "best-effort" as well (perhaps unavoidable, but very
   minor so)

You can "mask" that text w/ ‘aa2u-mark-as-text’.
   
BTW, if anyone has any particularly fetching examples of
ascii-art-to-unicode.el at work (or play) that they'd like
to contribute to its tip jar page, please post it to this
mailing list w/ "aa2u zow" in the subject line.  You can
post either only the ASCII, in which case i'll prepare a
"before and after" file (and screenshot), or a file that
does the "before and after" demo including instructions
on how to get from "before" to "after".

I will credit contributors on the tip jar page, of course.

   Also, when typing, that typically screws up the figure,
   so can you make it insert text while simultaneously
   eating whitespace at the other end?

This is what the venerable ‘overwrite-mode’ does.

-- 
Thien-Thi Nguyen
   GPG key: 4C807502
   (if you're human and you know it)
      read my lisp: (responsep (questions 'technical)
                               (not (via 'mailing-list)))
                     => nil

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Re: artist-mode/aa2u

[Emanuel Berg]

Thien-Thi Nguyen <ttn@gnu.org> writes:

> You can "mask" that text w/ ‘aa2u-mark-as-text’.

Aha, cool!

> BTW, if anyone has any particularly fetching examples
> of ascii-art-to-unicode.el at work (or play) that
> they'd like to contribute to its tip jar page, please
> post it to this mailing list w/ "aa2u zow" in the
> subject line.  You can post either only the ASCII, in
> which case i'll prepare a "before and after" file
> (and screenshot), or a file that does the "before and
> after" demo including instructions on how to get from
> "before" to "after".
>
> I will credit contributors on the tip jar page, of
> course.

Perhaps *I* should credit *you* in my paper! But then I
suppose I would have to credit Bjarne Stroustrup for
C++, Donald Knuth for TeX, Leslie Lamport for LaTeX,
down to Gutenberg for the printing press... It would be
a massacre.

No, of course I can send the stuff to you when its
done. But you might even more interested in this [1],
namely, how it looks and works in an
xelatex-compiled PDF (instead of pdflatex; xelatex is
in the Debian texlive-xetex package).

Cred to the people at comp.text.tex for helping me with
that.

>> Also, when typing, that typically screws up the
>> figure, so can you make it insert text while
>> simultaneously eating whitespace at the other end?
>
> This is what the venerable ‘overwrite-mode’ does.

OK, silly me. Of course. (That, or something to that
extent, is applied by default in the artist-mode, by
the way.)

[1] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/hs/docs/report/xformal/

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: artist-mode/aa2u

[Rusi]

On Sunday, May 25, 2014 12:21:02 PM UTC+5:30, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> Rusi writes:
> 
> 
> > So currently I am torn between: On the one hand
> > xelatex does not work, classic latex works On the
> > other this is freakin 2014 do we still stay in 1980
> > and write \alpha \beta \gamma \delta ... \omega and
> > \sum and \forall when we can directly write α β γ δ …
> > ω ∑ ∀ ??
> 
> 
> I think \alpha is better. I can't see those other chars
> for starters and I'd like to be sure everyone see what
> I write.

Yes… not seeing *is* a problem. We are in times of transition...

> Also, how did you insert them? ("\alpha" takes zero time to type.)

Inserting α is identical to inserting \alpha – just use tex input method
in emacs

Of course in the long run even this is way too much.

I need one keystroke to type an 'a' 1½ (that is 1-and-a-half if you cant see it)
to type a 'A' — a shift+A chord.  I would expect all standard heavily used
keys to be upto 3-4 keystrokes away. eg the half above is 3 keys:
Compose+1+2. [Ive set compose to the Windows-menu key]

So I can get
αβψδεφγηιξκλμνοπ;ρστθωςχυζ
by typing
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 

if Ive setup my keyboard to switch between greek and us, thus

$ setxkbmap -option "grp:switch,grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll" -layout "us,gr"

Since I am not primarily interested in greek, I of course dont do this

Re: artist-mode/aa2u

[Emanuel Berg]

Rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> writes:

> Inserting α is identical to inserting \alpha – just
> use tex input method in emacs

Do you type \alpha and it (well) "expands" to the Greek
letter? Like an abbrev? If so, I don't like that, I
like what I type is what I get.

> Of course in the long run even this is way too much.
>
> I need one keystroke to type an 'a' 1½ (that is
> 1-and-a-half if you cant see it) to type a 'A' — a
> shift+A chord. I would expect all standard heavily
> used keys to be upto 3-4 keystrokes away. eg the half
> above is 3 keys: Compose+1+2. [Ive set compose to the
> Windows-menu key]

I still think it is much better just to type
\alpha. Faster and more solid. Five years from now, you
still remember it.

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Thien-Thi Nguyen <ttn@gnu.org> writes:

> What kind of diagrams?  Does RTF handle diagrams at
> all?  Unabashed plug:
> <http://www.gnuvola.org/software/aa2u/>.

Ha-ha, "foreground" :)

But that's actually a great idea (not just aa2u, but
artist-mode as well). I have been looking for a way to
do simple diagrams (trees, FSMs and so on) with the
keyboard only (i.e., generate from definitions) - I
have tried with ImageMagick and even Dia, as it uses
XML, so why not edit that first hand?

Answer: Problem with both approaches is that it
required too much back-and-forth
edit-and-check-and-fix-and-check-etc. so it just wasn't
pleasant or efficient (perhaps if you had a dual
monitor/projector and on-the-fly-update it would be).

This seems very interesting!

When I got a cool diagram, how do you propose I embed
it with the LaTeX PDF? I know there is way to include
plain text "as is" - perhaps that's even better than to
first export it as a picture, and then include the
picture? It is certainly more appealing - faster and
smaller.

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Grant Rettke]

Emanuel try http://ditaa.sourceforge.net/.

Grant Rettke | AAAS, ACM, ASA, FSF, IEEE, SIAM, Sigma Xi
gcr@wisdomandwonder.com | http://www.wisdomandwonder.com/
“Wisdom begins in wonder.” --Socrates
((λ (x) (x x)) (λ (x) (x x)))
“Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop
taking it seriously.” --Thompson


On Sat, May 24, 2014 at 1:22 PM, Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se>wrote:

> Thien-Thi Nguyen <ttn@gnu.org> writes:
>
> > What kind of diagrams?  Does RTF handle diagrams at
> > all?  Unabashed plug:
> > <http://www.gnuvola.org/software/aa2u/>.
>
> Ha-ha, "foreground" :)
>
> But that's actually a great idea (not just aa2u, but
> artist-mode as well). I have been looking for a way to
> do simple diagrams (trees, FSMs and so on) with the
> keyboard only (i.e., generate from definitions) - I
> have tried with ImageMagick and even Dia, as it uses
> XML, so why not edit that first hand?
>
> Answer: Problem with both approaches is that it
> required too much back-and-forth
> edit-and-check-and-fix-and-check-etc. so it just wasn't
> pleasant or efficient (perhaps if you had a dual
> monitor/projector and on-the-fly-update it would be).
>
> This seems very interesting!
>
> When I got a cool diagram, how do you propose I embed
> it with the LaTeX PDF? I know there is way to include
> plain text "as is" - perhaps that's even better than to
> first export it as a picture, and then include the
> picture? It is certainly more appealing - faster and
> smaller.
>
> --
> underground experts united:
> http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
>

Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Grant Rettke <gcr@wisdomandwonder.com> writes:

> Emanuel try http://ditaa.sourceforge.net

Thanks, but I haven't given up just yet of including
the Unicode right into the PDF - just imagine how cool,
with no image files whatsoever to burden you!

So just now, I sent the following to comp.text.tex -
let's see if they can solve it!

(post begins here)

I just learned about Emacs' artist-mode on
gnu.emacs.help, which I used to draw two
diagrams. Then, I used a clever tool called
aa2u (ASCII Art To Unicode) [1] to make solid lines
out of the dashes and all that.

Examples: with [2] and without [3] Unicode.

Now, in the LaTeX source [4] I put this:

\usepackage{alltt}
%% ...
\begin{alltt}
  \input{tree.txt}
  \clearpage
  \input{multicore.txt}
\end{alltt}

And the result looks like this [5] (at page 2, right
after the TOC).

Question is, is there a similar way to include not the
ASCII, but the UTF-8 versions of the diagrams? I tried
the same way, only it got stuck on pdflatex on the very
Unicode.

I know I can make pictures of them but I like the idea
of just having those as text, and just inserting them
(faster update, and no in-between file - minimal
overhead).

[1] http://www.gnuvola.org/software/aa2u/
[2] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/hs/docs/report/multicore.txt
[3] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/hs/docs/report/multicore_u.txt
[4] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/hs/docs/report/formal.tex
[5] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/hs/docs/report/formal.pdf

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Rusi]

On Sunday, May 25, 2014 7:52:03 AM UTC+5:30, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> Question is, is there a similar way to include not the
> 
> ASCII, but the UTF-8 versions of the diagrams? I tried
> the same way, only it got stuck on pdflatex on the very
> Unicode.

xetex (xelatex) and luatex are intended to solve this.
I need to say however...
After 3 days of struggling including some 1 G of downloads and setup fiddling
I hear that it may not be (quite) working.

So currently I am torn between:
On the one hand xelatex does not work, classic latex works
On the other this is freakin 2014 do we still stay in 1980 and write
\alpha \beta \gamma \delta ... \omega and \sum and \forall 
when we can directly write α β γ δ … ω ∑ ∀ ??

Note Haskell can already do ≠ instead of /= Likewise ∧ ∨ instead of
ugly and obsolete && ||

More examples:
http://blog.languager.org/2014/05/unicode-in-haskell-source.html

And a more tongue-in-cheek poke at unix assumptions about ASCII
http://blog.languager.org/2014/04/unicode-and-unix-assumption.html

Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> writes:

> So currently I am torn between: On the one hand
> xelatex does not work, classic latex works On the
> other this is freakin 2014 do we still stay in 1980
> and write \alpha \beta \gamma \delta ... \omega and
> \sum and \forall when we can directly write α β γ δ …
> ω ∑ ∀ ??

I think \alpha is better. I can't see those other chars
for starters and I'd like to be sure everyone see what
I write. Also, how did you insert them? ("\alpha" takes
zero time to type.)

Only with complicated formulas it might make sense to
have the Greek alphabet as it is - I can't say for the
mathematicians or the HPC professionals or whatever...

> Note Haskell can already do ≠ instead of /= Likewise
> ∧ ∨ instead of ugly and obsolete && ||

No way, ugly and obsolete! There will always be more
excellent C (with !='s) around than ever purist and
neurotic Haskell. But to each his own. (By the way,
some of those chars I cannot see as well.)

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Yuri Khan]

On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:22 AM, Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> wrote:

> I have been looking for a way to
> do simple diagrams (trees, FSMs and so on) with the
> keyboard only (i.e., generate from definitions) - I
> have tried with ImageMagick and even Dia, as it uses
> XML, so why not edit that first hand?

I do my diagrams in a self-invented semi-human-readable markup
language[1], which is then post-processed using Python scripts into
Graphviz[2] graph description language, which is then further rendered
into any image format you like (notably PNG, SVG, PDF and EPS). My
format of choice happens to be SVG, which I can conveniently view in
my web browser, print out without any loss of quality, and/or embed in
an HTML page.

[1] http://yurivkhan.github.io/textuml/ but see also
http://sf.net/plantuml/ for a Java-based alternative
[2] http://www.graphviz.org/

One could write Graphviz directly but it is too low-level and verbose.
I view it as a graph assembly language and build higher-level tools on
top of it.

> Answer: Problem with both approaches is that it
> required too much back-and-forth
> edit-and-check-and-fix-and-check-etc. so it just wasn't
> pleasant or efficient (perhaps if you had a dual
> monitor/projector and on-the-fly-update it would be).

Yes, it involves this feedback loop, and it’s mildly frustrating. And
yes, dual monitors help very much.

> When I got a cool diagram, how do you propose I embed
> it with the LaTeX PDF?

In my opinion, nohow. PDFs are for getting your article printed, and
that’s becoming more and more irrelevant. Better publish online in
HTML with illustrations in SVG. (But if you must, Graphviz can also
generate Encapsulated PostScript which LaTeX will happily include in
the PDF.)

Re: RTF for emacs

[Grant Rettke]

Yuri you reinvented org-mode.

Grant Rettke | AAAS, ACM, ASA, FSF, IEEE, SIAM, Sigma Xi
gcr@wisdomandwonder.com | http://www.wisdomandwonder.com/
“Wisdom begins in wonder.” --Socrates
((λ (x) (x x)) (λ (x) (x x)))
“Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop
taking it seriously.” --Thompson


On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 12:27 AM, Yuri Khan <yuri.v.khan@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:22 AM, Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se>
> wrote:
>
> > I have been looking for a way to
> > do simple diagrams (trees, FSMs and so on) with the
> > keyboard only (i.e., generate from definitions) - I
> > have tried with ImageMagick and even Dia, as it uses
> > XML, so why not edit that first hand?
>
> I do my diagrams in a self-invented semi-human-readable markup
> language[1], which is then post-processed using Python scripts into
> Graphviz[2] graph description language, which is then further rendered
> into any image format you like (notably PNG, SVG, PDF and EPS). My
> format of choice happens to be SVG, which I can conveniently view in
> my web browser, print out without any loss of quality, and/or embed in
> an HTML page.
>
> [1] http://yurivkhan.github.io/textuml/ but see also
> http://sf.net/plantuml/ for a Java-based alternative
> [2] http://www.graphviz.org/
>
> One could write Graphviz directly but it is too low-level and verbose.
> I view it as a graph assembly language and build higher-level tools on
> top of it.
>
> > Answer: Problem with both approaches is that it
> > required too much back-and-forth
> > edit-and-check-and-fix-and-check-etc. so it just wasn't
> > pleasant or efficient (perhaps if you had a dual
> > monitor/projector and on-the-fly-update it would be).
>
> Yes, it involves this feedback loop, and it’s mildly frustrating. And
> yes, dual monitors help very much.
>
> > When I got a cool diagram, how do you propose I embed
> > it with the LaTeX PDF?
>
> In my opinion, nohow. PDFs are for getting your article printed, and
> that’s becoming more and more irrelevant. Better publish online in
> HTML with illustrations in SVG. (But if you must, Graphviz can also
> generate Encapsulated PostScript which LaTeX will happily include in
> the PDF.)
>
>

Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Yuri Khan <yuri.v.khan@gmail.com> writes:

> In my opinion, nohow. PDFs are for getting your
> article printed, and that’s becoming more and more
> irrelevant.

I don't think so. Just think about the computer-book
industry! A lot of thick manuals are lovely to print
(and heft) and then have by the computer to look up
things. Books (physical) are much more relaxing to
read, and involves less eye-strain, and they work on a
different mental plane - when at the keyboard, you (or
I perhaps I should say) want to be the fighter pilot,
active, overconfident, focusing on the problem, trying
new things, attacking from different angles. With the
book (perhaps on a train station) you are the
helicopter pilot, modest and low-key, trying to grasp
the whole scope of things - like 600 pages of C
programming - you sure didn't think of that when you
perfected a couple of nested for loops to nail an
algorithm... Also, reading more general books (perhaps
the autobiography of Wozniak, which I today learned is
available as an audio book) - that stuff is great for
culture, and very enjoyable.

> Better publish online in HTML ...

Well, LaTeX is much more expressive (beyond any
comparison, really) and it looks the same everywhere.

Other than that, interesting post. Get back to you on
that home-crafted tool of yours.

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Yuri Khan]

On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:40 PM, Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> wrote:

>> Better publish online in HTML ...
>
> Well, LaTeX is much more expressive (beyond any
> comparison, really) and it looks the same everywhere.

Expressive, yes, but that should be fixed by developing and
standardizing XML schemas for everything that is not well expressible
in HTML/MathML/SVG.

Looks the same, yes, and that’s a bad thing. The shape of content
should adapt to the reader [both human who does the reading, and
device which is used], not the other way round. On paper, I am ok with
10pt Times and can handle two columns on an A4 page or two A5 pages
side-by-side. On a desktop screen [at least until 4K displays become
widely available and reasonably priced], I want a highly legible 12pt
sans-serif, hinted for subpixel rendering, in a single column of
adjustable width, and no subdivision into fixed-size pages. And don’t
even start with me about tablets and smartphones. (And no, it’s not
reasonable to expect that readers be able or willing to re-render your
LaTeX article for their device capabilities and personal preferences.)

Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Yuri Khan <yuri.v.khan@gmail.com> writes:

> Expressive, yes, but that should be fixed by
> developing and standardizing XML schemas for
> everything that is not well expressible in
> HTML/MathML/SVG.

HTML and the Internet is one chaotic hack. LaTeX is a
virtually bug-free, domain-specific programming
language to produce documents.

But it is not even HTML vs. LaTeX (or web vs. PDFs) as
those serve two totally different purposes. (Or should,
at least.)

> Looks the same, yes, and that’s a bad thing. The
> shape of content should adapt to the reader [both
> human who does the reading, and device which is
> used], not the other way round. On paper, I am ok
> with 10pt Times and can handle two columns on an A4
> page or two A5 pages side-by-side. On a desktop
> screen [at least until 4K displays become widely
> available and reasonably priced], I want a highly
> legible 12pt sans-serif, hinted for subpixel
> rendering, in a single column of adjustable width,
> and no subdivision into fixed-size pages. And don’t
> even start with me about tablets and
> smartphones. (And no, it’s not reasonable to expect
> that readers be able or willing to re-render your
> LaTeX article for their device capabilities and
> personal preferences.)

Yes, this is what I'm saying all along! I don't think
you should read PDFs on the monitor/projector, and
certainly not on "smart"phones - grep the web, you
should get web pages (in HTML), print the 600-page
manual or Ph.D. thesis with techno-science notation -
LaTeX and PDFs.

What you can do with HTML cannot at all compare to what
you can do with LaTeX, and if you could (which you
can't) it would be extremely uncertain if it would work
for half browsers - and some people actually need all
that stuff. (And I don't even like browsers, anyway.)

But I'm the first to say PDFs are used too much and for
information that do not benefit from it at all, and
then it is much better with ASCII or HTML.

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Glyn Millington]

Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com> writes:

>> Really, what *is* the use-case for "RTF"?
>
> What about writing a letter to your bank?  Or writing a short technical
> document that has to include diagrams?  Plain text can't really do these
> things.  Latex can do these things, but it's complicated.  Whenever I
> need to use Latex I have to look at lots of examples from the internet
> or the last time I used it.  Since I never write large reports using
> Latex it's syntax never sticks in my head.
>
> I use a word processor for these kind of things a present, Libreoffice.  I'd
> rather not do that though, it's clumsy.  If I had the time I'd help with
> adding RTF editing and/or word-processing to Emacs.

Hi Robert,

If you are capable of helping to add RTF editing to emacs then you are
surely capable of handling LaTeX :-)  However I'm not clear from your
post how deeply you are into the Emacs world. Do you, for example, know
about Auctex, the LaTeX-writing mode for Emacs? 

My own experience is that learning Emacs and LaTeX is a life-work in
itself, on top of  the need to actually make a living, raise kids etc
etc!  T.E.A., the Tweaking Emacs Addiction, has been the ruin of many.

The answer is to create templates, especially for LaTeX - then just
insert as needed.

1. Letters

There is a good tutorial for producing a letter here:
 
http://www.kindoblue.nl/articles/cover-letter-part1/


Look here for lot of templates

http://www.latextemplates.com/



2. Tech reports with diagrams.

LaTeX can produce amazing diagrams but it is, as you said, complicated. I
tend to produce graphics/diagrams elsewhere and then import 'em.  There
are some good tutorials here

http://www-h.eng.cam.ac.uk/help/tpl/textprocessing/



3. Org mode

Is fantastic and I use it all day and every day. My view would be that if
you want to use it for exporting  LaTeX, you need to have some
understanding of how LaTeX works in order to produce the org templates
you need.


> Something I'm considering is using info format. The info makeup is very
> simple (for the GNU manuals it's compiled from sources in a TeX dialect
> called TeXInfo, but it can be written directly). Another possibility is
> using HTML.

Seems like re-inventing the wheel!   The time might be better invested in
getting a grip on LaTeX.  The template thing has been the key for me.



Good luck!




Glyn

Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Glyn Millington <glyn.millington@gmail.com> writes:

> If you are capable of helping to add RTF editing to
> emacs then you are surely capable of handling LaTeX

Definitely! And it is a better project which also
involves a community. If you can't stand
Star/Libre/Open Office and the like word processors,
why try making Emacs into one?

> However I'm not clear from your post how deeply you
> are into the Emacs world. Do you, for example, know
> about Auctex, the LaTeX-writing mode for Emacs?

And latex-mode.

> My own experience is that learning Emacs and LaTeX is
> a life-work in itself, on top of the need to actually
> make a living, raise kids etc etc!  T.E.A., the
> Tweaking Emacs Addiction, has been the ruin of many.

Yes! On the other hand it is pleasant, relaxing, you
learn stuff, and all the improvements you make, you
immediately can use and benefit from (even derive
pleasure and pride). Compare this to all the morons
who who spend years on the grandiose MMORPG or
would-be-Quake-killer, projects that will never
complete and from whose activity it is very difficult
to flow anything sensible (and generalizable) to the
outside world.

Emacs hacking is an OCB trap but it is possible to get
out on the other side and have a system you really,
really enjoy (and have mastered, not the least through
the tweak process itself) - but sure, if you don't get
out and is stuck starving in the buffer in-between,
then it sucks.

> The answer is to create templates, especially for
> LaTeX - then just insert as needed ...  Seems like
> re-inventing the wheel!  The time might be better
> invested in getting a grip on LaTeX.

Absolutely right! Why don't you write here more often,
Mr. Millington? :)

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[James Freer]

On 24/05/2014, Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> wrote:
> Rasmus <rasmus@gmx.us> writes:
>
>> I'm not aware of any RTF initiatives.  Did you try
>> Org?  It outputs to odt, html and LaTeX.
>
> Yeah. Question to the OP: Why do you want "RTF"?

I didn't mean RTF especially but rich text able to do basic word
processing including page numbering suitable for basic docs but
without going OTT like LO-writer.

Thank you for suggesting org, html, enriched text but it's not the
same. These days I tend to use google docs for speed, draft in emacs
as text and then import into google docs... that's a pain. I just
vaguely recall something once being mentioned for emacs... does
everything else after all.

james

Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

James Freer <jessejazza3.uk@gmail.com> writes:

> I didn't mean RTF especially but rich text able to do
> basic word processing including page numbering
> suitable for basic docs but without going OTT like
> LO-writer.

I don't know exactly what RTF is is but I take it is
the word processor stuff: fonts, boldface, headers,
etc.

Again, I don't see why not just using a word processor
for people who want that - isn't that what they are
for?

I prefer just typing text, and with markups for the
rare cases it is needed, ..., it is the cooler, faster,
and more powerful approach with few limitations (what I
can see) and all the benefits. It is more pleasant,
which should never be underestimated. The more
relaxation and familiarity with the tools, the bigger
part of the brain can be allocated the qualitative part
of the problem...

Of course, LaTeX does (can do) page numbering
automatically and there are lots of options to it.

> Thank you for suggesting org, html, enriched text but
> it's not the same.

Well, I didn't suggest that (perhaps someone else did)
- I suggest HTML (and CSS) for *webpages* (but created
as markuped text), and LaTeX (likewise) for ambitious,
lengthy documents that are expected not to change much,
and be printed (read by humans), that require
specialized notation (beyond ASCII). And: plain text
for everything else.

> These days I tend to use google docs for speed, draft
> in emacs as text and then import into google
> docs... that's a pain.

Yes... it sucks. The web, man. Back to the days when
programs roamed the world...

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Hans BKK]

On Wednesday, May 21, 2014 4:41:32 AM UTC-4, jessejazza wrote:
> I read some time ago that there was development taking place for providing 
> 
> emacs with word processing i.e. formatting iirc RTF.

The closest native-Emacs WYSIWYG rich text facility is "enriched mode"

M-x enriched-mode

based on the MIME 'text/enriched' file format (RFC 1896)

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Enriched-Text.html
https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Enriched-Mode.html
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EnrichedMode

Apparently can save as HTML. https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Format-Conversion.html#Format-Conversion

Personally I'd recommend using one of the extended Markdown flavours like MultiMarkdown or Markdown-Extra - my choice for conversion/publishing tools would be Pandoc - very responsive support and active development, and there is a Pandoc-mode Emacs package. But if you're a ruby guy then kramdown, red carpet et al may be the ticket.

Note these don't give you live-preview, but can exert fine control over output to PDF via ConTeXT or LaTeX as well as to/from a slew of other formats, also including HTML if desired.

Re: RTF for emacs

[Hans BKK]

Yah WordStar keybindings - I'm SURE there's a package for that out there somewhere. . .

Re the OP's quest for WYSIWYG in emacs, that really seems to go against the fundamental philosophy of emacs in a way but as I mentioned earlier there is a built-in mode for that, as long as you don't mind the file-format not being well-supported - but it IS based on W3 RFC standards.

Really (again) markdown's the way to go. If you really need WYSIWYG then there are lots of editors in the Mac world.

Others:
http://mashable.com/2013/06/24/markdown-tools/

and of course
https://www.google.com/search?q=wysiwyg+markdown

Re: RTF for emacs

[Stefan Monnier]

> Yah WordStar keybindings - I'm SURE there's a package for that out
> there somewhere. . .

How 'bout in Emacs?  Try M-x wordstar-mode RET


        Stefan

Re: RTF for emacs

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> Yah WordStar keybindings - I'm SURE there's a package for that out
>> there somewhere. . .
>
> How 'bout in Emacs?  Try M-x wordstar-mode RET
>
>
>         Stefan

That was evil. I went into wordstar-mode, then hit "C-h m" expecting to
learn all about the amazing Wordstar keybindings and their superiority
to the default emacs keys. Instead I went back a character and inserted
an "m".

Disillusionedly,

E

Re: RTF for emacs

[Charles Philip Chan]

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Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:

Hi Eric:

> That was evil. I went into wordstar-mode, then hit "C-h m" expecting
> to learn all about the amazing Wordstar keybindings and their
> superiority to the default emacs keys. Instead I went back a character
> and inserted an "m".

What do you expect? You asked for Wordstar bindings and you got it. C-h
is backspace delete in Wordstar (which is incorrect in Wordstar-mode,
since it only does a backspace) like most other terminal
programs :-). In wordstar mode you need to use F1-m for that.

Charles

-- 
"On a normal ascii line, the only safe condition to detect is a 'BREAK'
- everything else having been assigned functions by Gnu EMACS."
(By Tarl Neustaedter)

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Re: RTF for emacs

[James Freer]

On Thu, 29 May 2014, Stefan Monnier wrote:

>> Yah WordStar keybindings - I'm SURE there's a package for that out
>> there somewhere. . .
>
> How 'bout in Emacs?  Try M-x wordstar-mode RET
>
>
>        Stefan

I tried it but some of them e.g.  ^G
It's not a complete set of commands unlike editor Joe but Joe doesn't do 
(soft) wordwrap like emacs does.

james

Re: RTF for emacs

[James Freer]

On 29/05/2014, James Freer <jessejazza3.uk@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 29 May 2014, Stefan Monnier wrote:
>
>>> Yah WordStar keybindings - I'm SURE there's a package for that out
>>> there somewhere. . .
>>
>> How 'bout in Emacs?  Try M-x wordstar-mode RET
>>
>>
>>        Stefan
>
> I tried it but some of them e.g.  ^G
> It's not a complete set of commands unlike editor Joe but Joe doesn't do
> (soft) wordwrap like emacs does.
>
> james

Sorry ^G was correct but there was another that was not... but I may
have made a mistake! I'll have to look at it again.

james

Re: RTF for emacs

[Joost Kremers]

James Freer wrote:
>> I tried it but some of them e.g.  ^G
>> It's not a complete set of commands unlike editor Joe but Joe doesn't do
>> (soft) wordwrap like emacs does.

Try `C-h f wordstar-mode RET' (while not in wordstar-mode!) for a list
of available keybindings.

-- 
Joost Kremers                                   joostkremers@fastmail.fm
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Re: RTF for emacs

[James Freer]

On Thu, 29 May 2014, Joost Kremers wrote:

> James Freer wrote:
>>> I tried it but some of them e.g.  ^G
>>> It's not a complete set of commands unlike editor Joe but Joe doesn't do
>>> (soft) wordwrap like emacs does.
>
> Try `C-h f wordstar-mode RET' (while not in wordstar-mode!) for a list
> of available keybindings.
>
> -- 
> Joost Kremers

thanks - I thought there must be a list somewhere but I haven't navigated my 
way round emacs properly yet. This is v.useful for my learning sessions. Over 
the next few days I'm spending an hour or so on emacs.

james

Re: RTF for emacs

[Charles Philip Chan]

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Hans BKK <hansbkk@gmail.com> writes:

Hi Hans:

> Re the OP's quest for WYSIWYG in emacs, that really seems to go
> against the fundamental philosophy of emacs in a way but as I
> mentioned earlier there is a built-in mode for that, as long as you
> don't mind the file-format not being well-supported - but it IS based
> on W3 RFC standards.

Well Org-mode is also semi-WYSIWYG. One does not see the final layout,
but one does sees see bold, italic, underline, strike through, math
symbols, tables, pictures, etc, and the structure of the document.

Charles

-- 
"It's God.  No, not Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds, but God."
(By Matt Welsh)

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Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Hans BKK <hansbkk@gmail.com> writes:

> Re the OP's quest for WYSIWYG in emacs, that really
> seems to go against the fundamental philosophy of
> emacs

Didn't the OP say he didn't care about batch/markup
vs. WYSIWYG? (A bit strange not to care about that, but
that's what he said.)

Come to think of it, the Emacs font locks are sort of a
bridge - if I write this in LaTeX (in latex-mode)

\subsection{the top-most, global scheduler}

In the program, there is a single scheduler at the
highest level: the top of the hierarchy. This scheduler
is called the {\em global scheduler}.

the header turns yellow, and the emphasized term turns
light green.

Without font lock it would be so uninspiring and boring
(and less efficient) to write just about anything, but
aside from that it can be used to make markup resemble
the compiled result just a bit.

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Joost Kremers]

Emanuel Berg wrote:
> Come to think of it, the Emacs font locks are sort of a
> bridge - if I write this in LaTeX (in latex-mode)
>
> \subsection{the top-most, global scheduler}
>
> In the program, there is a single scheduler at the
> highest level: the top of the hierarchy. This scheduler
> is called the {\em global scheduler}.
>
> the header turns yellow, and the emphasized term turns
> light green.

You should try C-c C-o C-b (`TeX-fold-buffer') and C-c C-p C-b
(`preview-buffer'). Combine those with a variable-width font
(`variable-pitch-mode', possibly also `(setq cursor-type 'bar)') and you
have the closest thing to WYSIWYG that Emacs currently has to offer:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/24935319/Emacs-WYSIWYG.png

-- 
Joost Kremers                                   joostkremers@fastmail.fm
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Joost Kremers <joost.m.kremers@gmail.com> writes:

>> Come to think of it, the Emacs font locks are sort
>> of a bridge - if I write this in LaTeX (in
>> latex-mode) \subsection{the top-most, global
>> scheduler} In the program, there is a single
>> scheduler at the highest level: the top of the
>> hierarchy. This scheduler is called the {\em global
>> scheduler}.  the header turns yellow, and the
>> emphasized term turns light green.
>
> You should try ...

Someone else should try it, someone that wants a
WYSIWYG editor :) (What you see is all you get,
sometimes.)

> C-c C-o C-b (`TeX-fold-buffer') and C-c C-p C-b
> (`preview-buffer'). Combine those with a
> variable-width font (`variable-pitch-mode', possibly
> also `(setq cursor-type 'bar)') and you have the
> closest thing to WYSIWYG that Emacs currently has to
> offer:
>
> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/24935319/Emacs-WYSIWYG.png

What?! - insane - here is what it looks to me:

http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/my-latex.png

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Joost Kremers]

Emanuel Berg wrote:
>> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/24935319/Emacs-WYSIWYG.png
>
> What?! - insane - here is what it looks to me:
>
> http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/my-latex.png

Like I said, TeX-fold-buffer makes that more WYSIWYG.

BTW, \em and friends have been deprecated since LaTeX2e. Search the web
or your local TeX for l2tabuen for an explanation.


-- 
Joost Kremers                                   joostkremers@fastmail.fm
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Charles Philip Chan <cpchan@bell.net> writes:

> Well Org-mode is also semi-WYSIWYG. One does not see
> the final layout, but one does sees see bold, italic,
> underline, strike through, math symbols, tables,
> pictures, etc, and the structure of the document.

Good point, that's what I mean!

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Hans BKK]

On Thursday, May 29, 2014 5:25:58 PM UTC-4, Charles Philip Chan wrote:
> Well Org-mode is also semi-WYSIWYG. One does not see the final layout,
> but one does sees see bold, italic, underline, strike through, math
> symbols, tables, pictures, etc, and the structure of the document.

Thanks, I guess a de-facto standard increasingly supported is better than a true standard that's fell by the wayside.

But personally for this use-case I'll stick with markup (in my case pandoc's supported flavors).

Re: RTF for emacs

[Charles Philip Chan]

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Hans BKK <hansbkk@gmail.com> writes:

Hi Hans:

> But personally for this use-case I'll stick with markup (in my case
> pandoc's supported flavors).

Pandoc does support org-mode too.

Charles

-- 
"We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds."
(Linus Torvalds about the superiority of Linux on the Amsterdam
Linux Symposium)

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Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com> writes:

>> Really, what *is* the use-case for "RTF"?
>
> What about writing a letter to your bank?

Your *what*? :)

> Or writing a short technical document that has to
> include diagrams?  Plain text can't really do these
> things.  Latex can do these things, but it's
> complicated.

It is, but you can usually make it work *once*, then
re-use the solution as your taste probably don't change
that much. (You don't need to bring up old stuff and
compare. Just do a skeleton and type in the new
stuff. Who cares if it gets wastefully intense. It
doesn't matter. It is not programming in that sense.)

The basic stuff isn't difficult, and the basic stuff
certainly includes the RTF stuff (boldface, lists,
simple math formulas etc.). Actually, the basic stuff
(that isn't difficult) gets you a lot more than from a
word processor.

Then, to get the details exactly the way you want can
take some time, yes. I always said, if people had
better taste to begin with, there wouldn't be such a
huge need to configure everything :P

I usually give it a couple of hours. For a detail, it
is insane, and even I (a perfectionist) would think it
crazy if it wasn't reusable ever after. Example: When I
wrote my BS thesis, I put as much time on the LaTeX as
on the silly M$ Access/VBA problem, then I wrote the MS
thesis and at that time I actually missed the LaTeX
hacking just a bit as there wasn't much left to do, I
had to focus on the actual task...

If you fail to get the detail right despite efforts,
turn to the SX TeX site or comp.text.tex - the TeX
people are very friendly and social, they are not like
programmers (I won't pretend to analyze that).

> Whenever I need to use Latex I have to look at lots
> of examples from the internet or the last time I used
> it.  Since I never write large reports using Latex
> it's syntax never sticks in my head.

Well, yeah, it is difficult like everything else and no
one said it should be simple.

> I use a word processor for these kind of things a
> present, Libreoffice.  I'd rather not do that though,
> it's clumsy.  If I had the time I'd help with adding
> RTF editing and/or word-processing to Emacs.
>
> Something I'm considering is using info format.  The
> info makeup is very simple (for the GNU manuals it's
> compiled from sources in a TeX dialect called
> TeXInfo, but it can be written directly).  Another
> possibility is using HTML.

Cool facts! But I don't think writing letters in info
or HTML makes any sense, sorry. Again, why not use
plain text and, if need be, LaTeX - it is better (than
RTF) and not that difficult, really, and, as for the
clumsy word processors, you don't get any of that just
typing away ASCII and LaTeX in your favourite editor...

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Robert Thorpe]

I appreciate everyone's replies.

Emanuel Berg distinguishes between different types of documents.
Firstly, there are very simple documents that just contain text, those
can be written as text files.  There are webpages which can be
written in HTML.  Large documents can be written using LaTeX.  ToDo
lists and organization can be written using Org mode.

There's another type of document though, those that are simple, but too
complex to make using plain text.  I was talking about writing letters
earlier.  Even that case is tricky.  Have you tried printing a letter
containing Unicode characters?  On my Xubuntu 12.04 system that doesn't
work, they appear as escape codes.  Unfortunately, lots of programs
still don't treat UTF-8 correctly.

For someone who knows LaTeX writing small documents isn't a problem.  I
have only done a few simple things with LaTeX.  I haven't used AucTex,
only Emac's LaTeX mode.  In my job I write reports in Microsoft Word,
I've never had a opportunity to write a long document in LaTeX.  In the
future, if I have the time I'd like to learn LaTeX.  I understand though
that it's a large and complex system, until I read this discussion I
didn't know there were so many different dialects withe different
capabilities.  It would take me months to learn it properly.  Similarly,
Org mode is complex.  I intend to learn that sometime in the future too,
but I haven't the time at present.  I spend quite a lot of time
organizing things, so I expect that'll be time well spent.

James Freer asked about this first, I think his situation is similar to
mine.  I can't justify the time I'd need to learn LaTeX since I'd use it
so infrequently.  That's why I'll continue using LibreOffice until
something better comes along that won't take too long to learn.

BR,
Robert Thorpe

Re: RTF for emacs

[James Freer]

On Sun, 25 May 2014, Robert Thorpe wrote:

> I appreciate everyone's replies.
>
> Emanuel Berg distinguishes between different types of documents.
> Firstly, there are very simple documents that just contain text, those
> can be written as text files.  There are webpages which can be
> written in HTML.  Large documents can be written using LaTeX.  ToDo
> lists and organization can be written using Org mode.
>
> There's another type of document though, those that are simple, but too
> complex to make using plain text.  I was talking about writing letters
> earlier.  Even that case is tricky.  Have you tried printing a letter
> containing Unicode characters?  On my Xubuntu 12.04 system that doesn't
> work, they appear as escape codes.  Unfortunately, lots of programs
> still don't treat UTF-8 correctly.
>
> For someone who knows LaTeX writing small documents isn't a problem.  I
> have only done a few simple things with LaTeX.  I haven't used AucTex,
> only Emac's LaTeX mode.  In my job I write reports in Microsoft Word,
> I've never had a opportunity to write a long document in LaTeX.  In the
> future, if I have the time I'd like to learn LaTeX.  I understand though
> that it's a large and complex system, until I read this discussion I
> didn't know there were so many different dialects withe different
> capabilities.  It would take me months to learn it properly.  Similarly,
> Org mode is complex.  I intend to learn that sometime in the future too,
> but I haven't the time at present.  I spend quite a lot of time
> organizing things, so I expect that'll be time well spent.
>
> James Freer asked about this first, I think his situation is similar to
> mine.  I can't justify the time I'd need to learn LaTeX since I'd use it
> so infrequently.  That's why I'll continue using LibreOffice until
> something better comes along that won't take too long to learn.
>
> BR,
> Robert Thorpe

It's not that I haven't the time to learn Latex - i just wanted to know if 
emacs was going to produce a word processor plugin or whatever. I'm not an IT 
grad and I don't find emacs easy to learn. I use it for editing prose text as 
features I love namely; mid cursor positioning (very useful when typing pages 
and pages... irritating in other editors to constantly type at the bottom of 
the screen), wordstar keybindings (still the most efficient and still popular 
with writers), visual line mode (softwrap or whatever you want to call the 
equivalent) which few editors do effectively... even vim - my other favourite 
editor is gedit. Only editor I know of that does mid cursor positioning is Pico 
but doesn't do wordwrap.

I am going to give Latex a go. Had a look earlier today at some of the small 
apps like Gimme and Texstudio  - using those as an intro was worthwhile. I take 
on board the comments folk have made. You can use Latex for simple docs as well 
as the more sophisticated maths/scientific manual... and it's fantastic.

As for word processing, LO-writer and Abiword have had their day - both buggy 
I've found. Online Zoho and google docs for me have replaced them. Of course 
there are online latex apps which I'm going to have a look at. Then I'll try 
emacs.

My gripe with emacs is that it takes a lot of learning. Natural app for the IT 
graduate. I'd love to have a LUG group where I could sit down for an hour with 
someone and go through a few things to reduce the learning curve. I'd love to 
customise the menus to remove the coders stuff so I am left with a basic UI 
with just what I want.

yours
james

Re: RTF for emacs

[Stefan Monnier]

> future, if I have the time I'd like to learn LaTeX.  I understand though
> that it's a large and complex system, until I read this discussion I
> didn't know there were so many different dialects withe different
> capabilities.

Word, LibreOffice, LaTeX, Emacs, Windows, Android, Firefox, ...
are all "large and complex systems".

> It would take me months to learn it properly.

No, it doesn't take months to use them properly.  Usually it takes
between a few minutes to a few hours to be able to use them (tho
obviously, in limited ways).  And then you learn more as your
needs grow.  And yes, you may keep learning new things about it for
years, but that doesn't mean it takes years to be able to use
them properly.

"Writing a simple letter" is actually a very good first step in the use
of LaTeX.  Look for a template on the web, and do it.


        Stefan

Re: RTF for emacs

[Robert Thorpe]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> future, if I have the time I'd like to learn LaTeX.  I understand though
>> that it's a large and complex system, until I read this discussion I
>> didn't know there were so many different dialects withe different
>> capabilities.
>
> Word, LibreOffice, LaTeX, Emacs, Windows, Android, Firefox, ...
> are all "large and complex systems".

Yes, some of them hide the complexity well, like Word and LibreOffice.
Even Emacs can be used as a fancy notepad and the extra features tackled
gradually.  The others I've already learned.

>> It would take me months to learn it properly.
>
> No, it doesn't take months to use them properly.

I think you're a much smarter fellow than me.  Over the years I've tried
several times to learn LaTeX by spending a day or two reading tutorials
and using it.  But, I've never been able to write practical documents
that way.  It's possible to copy templates, but understanding how they
work so small changes can be made is more difficult.

BR,
Robert Thorpe

Re: RTF for emacs

[Stefan Monnier]

> I think you're a much smarter fellow than me.

That can't be it: there are so many people using it, it can't be that hard.

> Over the years I've tried several times to learn LaTeX by spending
> a day or two reading tutorials and using it.  But, I've never been
> able to write practical documents that way.  It's possible to copy
> templates, but understanding how they work so small changes can be
> made is more difficult.

Use comp.text.tex or http://tex.stackexchange.com/ and you'll learn much
more quickly (and with much less frustration).


        Stefan

Re: RTF for emacs

[Rusi]

On Monday, May 26, 2014 9:11:56 AM UTC+5:30, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> Use comp.text.tex or http://tex.stackexchange.com/ and you'll learn much
> more quickly (and with much less frustration).

Thanks -- looks like sound advice!

Ive been struggling with xetex for a few days without much progress.
Is there a mailing list equivalent of comp.text.tex?
And/or does googlegroups work?

[My experience is that many usenet lists dont allow google groups posts until there is a separate mailing list membership]

Re: RTF for emacs

[Rusi]

On Monday, May 26, 2014 6:09:14 PM UTC+5:30, Rusi wrote:
> On Monday, May 26, 2014 9:11:56 AM UTC+5:30, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > Use comp.text.tex or http://tex.stackexchange.com/ and you'll learn much
> > more quickly (and with much less frustration).
> 
> Thanks -- looks like sound advice!
> 
> 
> 
> Ive been struggling with xetex for a few days without much progress.
> 
> Is there a mailing list equivalent of comp.text.tex?
> And/or does googlegroups work?
> 
> 
> [My experience is that many usenet lists dont allow google groups 
> posts until there is a separate mailing list membership]

[Answering my own [somewhat OT] question]
Evidently I have managed to subscribe to the list via GG

Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> I think you're a much smarter fellow than me.
>
> That can't be it: there are so many people using it,
> it can't be that hard.

Good point, there just can't be that many intelligent
people around :)

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Rusi]

On Monday, May 26, 2014 7:19:12 AM UTC+5:30, Robert Thorpe wrote:
> Stefan Monnier  writes:
> > No, it doesn't take months to use them properly.
> 
> I think you're a much smarter fellow than me.  Over the years I've tried
> several times to learn LaTeX by spending a day or two reading tutorials
> and using it.  But, I've never been able to write practical documents
> that way.  It's possible to copy templates, but understanding how they
> work so small changes can be made is more difficult.

If latex bugs you, just use the odt (aka libreoffice) backend of org mode.

Just to add to Charles' suggestion:
1. Start using the org that comes ready with emacs.
2. Play around with the functionality from the menu until 
basic structure editing makes sense and you dont need to fish
around in the menu for the keys.
3. Use tables and the table editor
4. Try all the exporters that it offers but dont do any significant
customization
5. Around this point you will have to decide whether for you org is 
- in the Latex category [Large complex non-working system]
- in the *I just LOVE it* category

If you fall into the second, switch from default org (which can be a
couple of MAJOR versions behind whats bundled with emacs) to a recent one, get that working and join the org mailing list :D.

Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com> writes:

> I think you're a much smarter fellow than me.

Remember the saying on IRC: "stupid is, as stupid does"
- it works the other way around, too. Use the smart
tools, you get smart as well. I mean, otherwise, you
won't get anything done at all :)

> Over the years I've tried several times to learn
> LaTeX by spending a day or two reading tutorials and
> using it.

Then perhaps that method isn't the best? I never spend
a day doing anything, I do everything everyday, and I
only consult tutorials when I look for a specific
answer to a specific problem. I don't know if that
would work for you but at least it is different from
what you know *don't* work, so why not try it?

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

James Freer <jessejazza3.uk@gmail.com> writes:

> I just wanted to know if emacs was going to produce a
> word processor plugin or whatever.

Come to think of it, perhaps that's not a bad idea and
some people should have done something to that extent,
I'm sure (because there are zillion Emacs projects) -
perhaps checkout the Emacs Wiki for "RTF" or "word
processor"? Perhaps those projects lost steam with the
Org-mode success.

Before this thread, I thought Org-mode was sort of the
Emacs equivalent of a word processor but turns out it
is some sort of markup system which sounds like another
markup language to learn - might as well use HTML or
LaTeX directly in that case, it would seem...

The reason I don't like word processors in general are
they typically rely on the mouse, or/and the cursor
keys, and/or the "Page Up"/"Page Down" keys, to do
cursor movement and scrolling, which I find moronic
compared to the Emacs way. Also, they use the CUA keys
(Ctrl-C to copy etc.) which I consider inferior to the
kill ring (killing and yanking), but not by far by as
wide a margin. Also, word processors are not
programmable like Emacs and the result produced is
proprietary or at best less portable. People tend to
fiddle with fonts and margins and God knows what for
hours just to have another computer or printer
view/print it with other fonts and specifications
anyway...

> I'm not an IT grad and I don't find emacs easy to
> learn.

Being an IT grad typically doesn't apply to that as
much as those educations are theoretical for the most
part, however the same people that are on those
educations often have an interest for tools and the
practical side to it (or "obsession" perhaps is more to
it), so you are both right and wrong. But if you are a
practical man with an interest in how you do things,
and for computers, Emacs shouldn't be difficult to
learn, or acquire a working understanding of, at
least. How it works under the hood, the C and Lisp,
programmers in general don't understand, only those who
have taken special time and interest (lots of both).

> I use it for editing prose text as features I love
> namely; mid cursor positioning (very useful when
> typing pages and pages... irritating in other editors
> to constantly type at the bottom of the screen)

Interesting. I never thought (or used) that, what is
it? I can't say I have a problem typing anywhere but I
use a projector so when I have my head straight my eyes
are actually at the bottom 4th or 5th of the "screen".

> wordstar keybindings (still the most efficient and
> still popular with writers)

I never heard of WordStar - it doesn't seem to be
related to Oracle's StarOffice either because it
originated from a program called StarWriter. The Emacs'
keybindings for point movement, the C-f, C-b, M-f, M-b,
etc. and the whole char/word/line/etc. division is
obviously fantastic, one of the things with Emacs that
I always mention as it makes typing a whole other
experience.

> visual line mode (softwrap or whatever you want to
> call the equivalent) which few editors do
> effectively...

I used visual-line-mode in my early Emacs days but then
I got more into the "it should look exactly as it is"
so I switched to auto-fill-mode.

> my other favourite editor is gedit

gedit? Isn't that the basic editor you get with GNOME
that's hardly more than notepad?

> My gripe with emacs is that it takes a lot of
> learning. Natural app for the IT graduate. I'd love
> to have a LUG group where I could sit down for an
> hour with someone and go through a few things to
> reduce the learning curve.

I think you overestimate the IT graduates. Most IT
graduates have horrible taste just like anyone else and
they are not passionate about their editors. They just
use what's in front of them - Eclipse, for
example... Anyway, lacking a LUG you can use this
list. It is what it is for. A lot of the loud
discussion may concern coding and other advanced topics
but it is just what people enjoy to discuss. Very basic
questions are just as fine and people enjoy answering
them as well. Good luck!

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Rusi]

On Thursday, May 29, 2014 6:25:09 AM UTC+5:30, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> James Freer writes:

> > I just wanted to know if emacs was going to produce a
> > word processor plugin or whatever.

> Come to think of it, perhaps that's not a bad idea and
> some people should have done something to that extent,
> I'm sure (because there are zillion Emacs projects) -
> perhaps checkout the Emacs Wiki for "RTF" or "word
> processor"? Perhaps those projects lost steam with the
> Org-mode success.

> Before this thread, I thought Org-mode was sort of the
> Emacs equivalent of a word processor but turns out it
> is some sort of markup system which sounds like another
> markup language to learn - might as well use HTML or
> LaTeX directly in that case, it would seem...

Yeah org is a "some sort of markup system"


* Html export and web publishing
* Latex publishing
* odt (libreoffice) export

* Tables and spreadsheets

Yeat but its a rather strange sort of markup system.

Eg it supports

* Brainstorming
* My-own-private hyperlink system (aka wiki-like)

* Time/project mgmt
*** Agenda
*** Time tracking
*** Effort estimates
*** GTD
*** Journalling

* Syncing with IOS/Android
* Reproducible research and literate programming
* Meta-programming system

... yeah a rather strange kind of markup system

Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> writes:

> * My-own-private hyperlink system (aka wiki-like)

Links (bookmarks) are very useful - one of the most
helpful things that I thought of was to whenever I
Google I thing, I make a bookmark, and as the title, I
use the piece of code that solved my problem.

The reason I started to do that is that I realized that
often I had Googled something the other day, only to
have to do it again, and not finding that good site
that solved it (because I couldn't remember the exact
search phrase) - also, if you make an effort to really
write the titles, the bookmarks file (plain .html in
Emacs-w3m) becomes sort of a quick reference.

To make it fast, I wrote a couple of defuns:

(defun w3m-bookmark-region-as-title ()
  (interactive)
  (let ((title-suggestion
         (if mark-active
             (buffer-substring (region-beginning) (region-end))
           w3m-current-title )))
    (w3m-bookmark-add w3m-current-url title-suggestion) ))

(defun w3m-bookmark-url-at-point ()
  (interactive)
  (w3m-bookmark-add (w3m-url-valid (w3m-anchor))) )

From: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/conf/emacs-init/w3m.el

> * Brainstorming ...
> * Time/project mgmt *** Agenda *** Time tracking ***
> Effort estimates *** GTD *** Journalling

That sounds like the things lamers like to fiddle with
to pretend they are working. Or am I wrong? (What is
"GTD"?)

> * Syncing with IOS/Android * Reproducible research
> and literate programming * Meta-programming system

I have no idea what any of that is. "Reproducible
research" sounds interesting though.

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[James Freer]

On Thu, 29 May 2014, Emanuel Berg wrote:

> example... Anyway, lacking a LUG you can use this
> list. It is what it is for. A lot of the loud
> discussion may concern coding and other advanced topics
> but it is just what people enjoy to discuss. Very basic
> questions are just as fine and people enjoy answering
> them as well. Good luck!

Thanks for posting. I'll follow up with some basic questions and setting up my 
.emacs. I am determined to make a 'go' of emacs. I think we should close this 
thread now.

james

Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com> writes:

> There's another type of document though, those that
> are simple, but too complex to make using plain text.

Are you sure? Can you be more specific?

> I was talking about writing letters earlier.  Even
> that case is tricky.  Have you tried printing a
> letter containing Unicode characters?  On my Xubuntu
> 12.04 system that doesn't work, they appear as escape
> codes.  Unfortunately, lots of programs still don't
> treat UTF-8 correctly.

If you are more specific, there are groups that can
help you with that in an instant. Try alt.os.linux or
debian.user (as Xubuntu is a Debian fork, way back).

> James Freer asked about this first, I think his
> situation is similar to mine.  I can't justify the
> time I'd need to learn LaTeX since I'd use it so
> infrequently.  That's why I'll continue using
> LibreOffice until something better comes along that
> won't take too long to learn.

LaTeX is not difficult and you can learn it very
fast. However, if you are stuck at work with Words all
day long it might not be an option right now, but it is
not difficult, trust me - and especially if you set up
templates (or skeletons) as has been suggested by me
and others. I'm not telling you what to do, I'm only
saying it is not difficult.

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Robert Thorpe]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com> writes:
>
>> There's another type of document though, those that
>> are simple, but too complex to make using plain text.
>
> Are you sure? Can you be more specific?

I gave a few examples earlier, what about letters?  What about short
documents containing tables and diagram?  I often write these at work to
explain things to other people.  What about making a document that's
just a set of photos or pictures?

>> I was talking about writing letters earlier.  Even
>> that case is tricky.  Have you tried printing a
>> letter containing Unicode characters?  On my Xubuntu
>> 12.04 system that doesn't work, they appear as escape
>> codes.  Unfortunately, lots of programs still don't
>> treat UTF-8 correctly.
>
> If you are more specific, there are groups that can
> help you with that in an instant. Try alt.os.linux or
> debian.user (as Xubuntu is a Debian fork, way back).

There may be a fix for that, it's true.  There are bunch of other
problems though.  In Emacs if you ps-print a buffer then it comes with a
huge header.  If you print it normally then the margins are tiny.
There's no convienent way to include images, such as scans of other
documents.  This stuff doesn't work well because very few people write
letters using plain text.  I could fix it, but it would probably break
in the future for that reason.

> LaTeX is not difficult and you can learn it very
> fast. However, if you are stuck at work with Words all
> day long it might not be an option right now, but it is
> not difficult, trust me - and especially if you set up
> templates (or skeletons) as has been suggested by me
> and others. I'm not telling you what to do, I'm only
> saying it is not difficult.

I've tried to learn it.  I found it difficult to learn and I found
the resources on the internet poor.  Almost all of them seem to assume
that the user has read one of the books on the subject already.

BR,
Robert Thorpe

Re: RTF for emacs

[Allan Streib]

Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com> writes:

> I've tried to learn it.  I found it difficult to learn and I found
> the resources on the internet poor.  Almost all of them seem to assume
> that the user has read one of the books on the subject already.

I learned the basics from _Learning LaTeX_ by Griffiths and Higham.

 http://www.amazon.com/Learning-LaTeX-David-F-Griffiths/dp/0898713838

It's a small book, but gives you enough to get going on the basics. It is
written for the beginner and presents just the essentials.  You can then
learn more from other resources as your needs/desires dictate.

Allan

Re: RTF for emacs

[Sharon Kimble]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1668 bytes --]

Allan Streib <astreib@indiana.edu> writes:

> Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com> writes:
>
>> I've tried to learn it.  I found it difficult to learn and I found
>> the resources on the internet poor.  Almost all of them seem to assume
>> that the user has read one of the books on the subject already.
>
> I learned the basics from _Learning LaTeX_ by Griffiths and Higham.
>
>  http://www.amazon.com/Learning-LaTeX-David-F-Griffiths/dp/0898713838
>
> It's a small book, but gives you enough to get going on the basics. It is
> written for the beginner and presents just the essentials.  You can then
> learn more from other resources as your needs/desires dictate.
>
I'm re-writing a book that I published over ten years ago, and in
the intervening period I've lost the sources, so I'm essentially
starting from scratch again. I started doing it in org-mode, and
have since converted it to latex, and these sites have helped me the
most -

http://www.sharelatex.com/learn/Main_Page
http://texblog.org/
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX

The first starts with building a basic document and has lots of
examples. Then it shows you how to change things and do different
things with the latex source. The last one is similar, and gives you
more of the theory behind it all. The texblog poses problems and
gives you solutions.

It helps if you have an idea of what you achieve, and then you can
gradually build your document up.

Sharon.
-- 
A taste of linux = http://www.sharons.org.uk
my git repo = https://bitbucket.org/boudiccas/dots
TGmeds = http://www.tgmeds.org.uk
Debian testing, Fluxbox 1.3.5, emacs 24.3.91.1

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Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Sharon Kimble <boudiccas@skimble.plus.com> writes:

> I'm re-writing a book that I published over ten years
> ago, and in the intervening period I've lost the
> sources, so I'm essentially starting from scratch
> again. I started doing it in org-mode, and have since
> converted it to latex

Yeah, good point. If you write a book you are probably
very focused to get every detail exactly as you want
it, because it is such an ambitious project. I always
said if writers learned LaTeX the whole publishing
industry would go to hell. And that would be a good
thing, but I don't think the writers will do us that
favour anytime soon.

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

This discussion is a bit confusing: let's see...

1. Can't use plain text because it isn't fitted for
tables or diagrams; it can't include images (a bit of
an absurd argument, but OK, it can't); and, it doesn't
look respectable enough when you write to
your bank (!).

2. Can't use a word processor (like Libre or Open
Office) because it sucks not using Emacs, having to
click icons etc. like it is a zoo or circus. (Actually
I have forgot what the reason were, so those are
courtesy of Yours Truly).

3. Can't use LaTeX because it is (supposedly) to
difficult, though it does all the things mentioned,
most likely better than anything else - stated and
understood, it produces PDFs.

Though I can't recommend it as I have never used it,
doesn't it look like that Org-mode is what you need?
Granted it handles formatting, tables, and diagrams,
and is capable of including images? Which I take it
does? So though I'm for plain text and in rare cases
LaTeX, logic seems to pinpoint Org-mode. The plot
thickens...

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

By the way, speaking of tables - did you know there can
be tables in the Unix man pages?

I think it looks awesome and I don't understand why the
man page writers don't employ it more often. Perhaps
they don't know about it or perhaps they just don't
enjoy spending time with documentation.

I did a bit of that a long time ago and the groff looks
like this:

.TS
box tab(@);
llllll.
okt@dec@hex@tecken@namn@skrivs i C
_
000@0@00@NUL@@\e0
001@1@01@SOH@start of heading
002@2@02@ST@start of text
003@3@03@ET@end of text
004@4@04@EOT@end of transmission
005@5@05@ENQ@enquiry
006@6@06@ACK@acknowledge
etc. etc.
.TE

Explanation:

.TS is (I suppose) "table start", and

.TE is "table end";

box tab(@); sets the tab delimiter char (for reasons
long forgotten, the default wouldn't do in this case -
perhaps it conflicted with the data somehow);

llllll. is the alignment of the cells, i.e, left;

and, the underscore symbolizes a straight line.

Here is a dump to show how it looks [1], the
full source [2], and a mini-tutorial [3] (ancient stuff
but should be mostly correct).

[1] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/man_sv/ascii_dumps/in_urxvt.png
[2] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/man_sv/ascii_files/ascii.7
[3] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/man_sv/index.html

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Charles Philip Chan]

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Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com> writes:

Hi Robert:

This is why I suggested Org-mode earlier. It uses a very light weight
and human readable markup language.[1]

> I gave a few examples earlier, what about letters?

In Org-mode, one can publish a letter to LaTeX or pdf using the
ox-koma-letter backend.

> What about short documents containing tables and diagram?  I often
> write these at work to explain things to other people.

For tables, Org-mode have a built in table editor (with a full menu). It
is actually a spreadsheet with the full power of calc behind it. For
even more complex table layouts, Org-mode supports table.el.[2]

As for diagrams, Org-mode supports many methods such as artist-mode,
ditaa[3], etc.

> What about making a document that's just a set of photos or pictures?

In Org-mode inline pictures are included using a very simple syntax like
this:

   [[./img/a.jpg]]
   [[/some_path/b.png]]

If one is running Emacs graphically, one can even display the pictures
inline in the buffer.

Charles

Footnotes: 
[1] http://orgmode.org/manual/Markup.html#Markup 
 
[2] http://table.sourceforge.net/ 

[3] http://ditaa.sourceforge.net/ 

-- 
"MSDOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years
of careful development."
(By dmeggins@aix1.uottawa.ca)

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Re: RTF for emacs

[Robert Thorpe]

Charles Philip Chan <cpchan@bell.net> writes:

> [1:text/plain Hide]
>
> Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com> writes:
>
> Hi Robert:
>
> This is why I suggested Org-mode earlier. It uses a very light weight
> and human readable markup language.[1]

I'll give it a try, thank you.

BR,
Robert Thorpe

Re: RTF for emacs

[Charles Philip Chan]

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Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com> writes:

Hi Robert:

> I'll give it a try, thank you.

If you do decide to give Org-mode a try, you might consider subscribing
to the mailing list.[1] It is very active and the people are really
helpful and friendly.

Regards,
Charles

Footnotes: 
[1] https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode 

-- 
Why use Windows, since there is a door?
(By fachat@galileo.rhein-neckar.de, Andre Fachat)

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Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com> writes:

> I gave a few examples earlier, what about letters?
> What about short documents containing tables and
> diagram?  I often write these at work to explain
> things to other people.
> What about making a document that's just a set of
> photos or pictures?

Letters are perfect for plain text as this conversation
exemplifies. Tables can be used with plain text but it
is often the case they get out of hand and you sit
fiddling trying to get straight margins etc. like an
idiot. Images obviously can't be done in plain text.

For those cases, LaTeX is a good choice, again if the
end result - a PDF - is desired.

I just put together an example in but a few minutes. It
involves a header, a table, and a picture. Have a look
at the source [1] and result [2]. It is very easy. At
that level, it is not more difficult than HTML.

The most advanced stuff I ever did in LaTeX is
this [3]. I don't know how advanced it is but it took
some time, put it that way.

> There may be a fix for that, it's true.  There are
> bunch of other problems though.  In Emacs if you
> ps-print a buffer then it comes with a huge header.
> If you print it normally then the margins are tiny.
> There's no convienent way to include images, such as
> scans of other documents.  This stuff doesn't work
> well because very few people write letters using
> plain text.  I could fix it, but it would probably
> break in the future for that reason.

I never printed directly from Emacs but I used the lpr
(line/laser print[er]) of the
Common Unix Printing System, or cups. I remember there
was once a problem printing special chars but I solved
it. I don't remember how so probably it was a quick
fix. Grep the net.

> I've tried to learn it.  I found it difficult to
> learn and I found the resources on the internet poor.
> Almost all of them seem to assume that the user has
> read one of the books on the subject already.

Like everything else in the pitch-dark computer world,
you are more benefited from books at a later
stage. Stage one is kicking and bending the door open
with you leg. As in, checking out my example, and
modifying it just a bit. Then, every day learn
something new. One thing a day is sufficient (365
things in a year! - except for the leap year when you
learn even more). It is not the Da Vinci code you have
to crack. More like a thousand of nails to hammer, just
like the hammerhead shark.

[1] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/latex/example/letter.tex
[2] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/latex/example/letter.pdf
[3] http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/about/matte.pdf

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Robert Thorpe]

Thanks for your advice Emanuel, I'll try some of it when I have the
time.

There is one thing I disagree with you about though.  You talk about
there being simple documents where plain text is sufficient and complex
documents.  I still think there's a third case, documents that are too
complex for plain text but that aren't as big as books or
dissertations.  I think that this type of document is much more
important than you think it is.  At least in my life I've had to write
short documents much more often than long ones.

As others have mentioned I'll try Org and Markdown too.

BR,
Robert Thorpe

Re: RTF for emacs

[regcl]

Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com> writes:

> As others have mentioned I'll try Org and Markdown too.

I have used both. If you want the emacs-centric solution, I highly
recommend org mode, which I found was easy to get started with and much
more scaleable in terms of leveraging emacs. FWIW, my primary
motivation for markdown was Github, but now Github handles org mode, so
I no longer need markdown.

I recently completed a medical journal manuscript using org mode with R
computation results flowing up into the document. I successfully shared
many intermediate results with colleges in PDF along the way and the
final draft via MSword. 

Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com> writes:

> There is one thing I disagree with you about though.
> You talk about there being simple documents where
> plain text is sufficient and complex documents.  I
> still think there's a third case, documents that are
> too complex for plain text but that aren't as big as
> books or dissertations.  I think that this type of
> document is much more important than you think it is.
> At least in my life I've had to write short documents
> much more often than long ones.

Not only programmers have a binary world-view. In the
Soviet Union, I heard there were only two trucks: one
big, and one small...

Writing those short documents doesn't seem pleasant at
all because you don't get the speed and workflow of
plain text, and you don't get the advanced features and
total control of LaTeX (and even if you did, it
wouldn't make sense to spend time on all the details
because you'd know the document would end up in the
cylinder archive pretty soon anyway, so why bother).

But if I had to do those short documents (and couldn't
use plain text) I would want something that still isn't
"compiled". I would want to see the changes instantly
as I make them, otherwise it would be complete torture
to produce any quantity of such documents. I don't know
if Org-mode does that, probably.

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Rusi]

On Tuesday, May 27, 2014 8:33:28 AM UTC+5:30, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> But if I had to do those short documents (and couldn't use plain
> text) I would want something that still isn't "compiled".

There's html along with html editors like mozilla.

> I would want to see the changes instantly as I make them, otherwise
> it would be complete torture to produce any quantity of such
> documents. I don't know if Org-mode does that, probably.

Org is heaven for people who think like programmers.
And by 'think like a programmer' I mean thinking structurally rather
than presentationally and looking for a way to batch-mode boring
repetitious activities.
And of course batch-mode and wysiwig are not compatible.
Yes org will compress links and in general nesting (headings) structure
but its focus is always on structure, not presentation.

For the presentation you need to call export -- a keystroke away.
Analogous to a programmer calling the compiler 

If that is not to your taste then as I said use html.
Yeah org has nifty export-to-html. But its uni-directional.

Just like a C compiler can produce assembly.
I can edit the assembly if I like but its not possible to go
back from modified assembly to correspondingly changed C.

Of course the same situation obtains for latex.
One can go from latex to pdf and then edit the pdf in acrobat or some such.
This is so ridiculously hard that no one even thinks of it!

Re: RTF for emacs

[Emanuel Berg]

Rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> writes:

>> But if I had to do those short documents (and
>> couldn't use plain text) I would want something that
>> still isn't "compiled".
>
> There's html along with html editors like mozilla.

No, HTML is compiled as well. You write HTML, save the
file, switch to the browser, hit the reload key (which
I have `r' in Emacs-w3m - let's see, maybe I still
remember? - F5 for the Joe Sixpack IE?) - and then you
see the final result. This compilation of course cannot
be compared to for example C with gcc (which has to
optimize advanced algorithms etc.) but it is still a
mapping from one representation (HTML) to another
(interactive text and/or graphics). And, apparently it
the process advanced enough for the big GUI browsers to
still not having it look the same (I remember there was
an ACID test - "acid", as it involved coloured boxes in
a psychedelic way).

> Org is heaven for people who think like programmers.
> And by 'think like a programmer' I mean thinking
> structurally rather than presentationally and looking
> for a way to batch-mode boring repetitious
> activities.  And of course batch-mode and wysiwig are
> not compatible.

Well, that depends. If you mean the horrible WYSIWYG
editors, than no. But isn't plain text the "true" what
you see is what you get?

> Yes org will compress links and in general nesting
> (headings) structure but its focus is always on
> structure, not presentation.

That's cool, and that's how I use LaTeX (but I think
you could do pixel plotting even if you wanted to) -
and that what the web aspires to be (with CSS), but I
think that will be completed in a distant future, if
ever. But even if they do some progress with CSS I
don't think it can ever compete with LaTeX when it
comes to the "PDF domain", static documents and
stuff. For the web, obviously I don't recommend PDFs
and I get frustrated when I Google some techno-science
thing and get only PDFs as hits.

> For the presentation you need to call export -- a
> keystroke away.  Analogous to a programmer calling
> the compiler

Yeah, that's OK for the rare document in LaTeX but for
every document - this post, for example - to compile
it, review, compile again, OK, looks nice, send - I
don't know how many mails and posts I send a day but if
I had to compile each that would be devastating. I
would have to change my activity and workflow
completely. But remember I don't produce the "third
kind" of documents that the OP theorized about, so I
don't have this problem at all (phew).

> If that is not to your taste then as I said use html.
> Yeah org has nifty export-to-html. But its
> uni-directional.

Well... what do you mean "use HTML"? I'm sort of over
building webpages but if I were to do it again I would
use HTML & CSS, of course. I'm not going to use HTML
for anything else and if I am to use HTML for the web
I'll just edit the .html and .css files in Emacs, in
the html-mode and css-mode.

> Just like a C compiler can produce assembly.  I can
> edit the assembly if I like but its not possible to
> go back from modified assembly to correspondingly
> changed C.

I'm not following?

> Of course the same situation obtains for latex.  One
> can go from latex to pdf and then edit the pdf in
> acrobat or some such.  This is so ridiculously hard
> that no one even thinks of it!

I never thought about it for another reason: why would
you want to do it?

-- 
underground experts united:
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: RTF for emacs

[Charles Philip Chan]

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Rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> writes:

Hi Rusi:

> Org is heaven for people who think like programmers.
> And by 'think like a programmer' I mean thinking structurally rather
> than presentationally and looking for a way to batch-mode boring
> repetitious activities.

Not only for programmers, but for writers. The structural nature of
Org-mode is really helpful for organising one's thought. After all it is
basically an outliner.

Charles

-- 
"I once witnessed a long-winded, month-long flamewar over the use of
mice vs. trackballs...It was very silly."
(By Matt Welsh)

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Re: RTF for emacs

[Rusi]

On Friday, May 30, 2014 3:25:51 AM UTC+5:30, Charles Philip Chan wrote:
> Rusi writes:

> Hi Rusi:

> > Org is heaven for people who think like programmers.
> > And by 'think like a programmer' I mean thinking structurally rather
> > than presentationally and looking for a way to batch-mode boring
> > repetitious activities.

> Not only for programmers, but for writers. The structural nature of
> Org-mode is really helpful for organising one's thought. After all it is
> basically an outliner.

I really meant 'think' as in the psychology.
And not 'programmer' as in the profession.

Here is an interesting link on 'programmer psychology'
http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/xgq27/uday_reddy_sharpens_up_referential_transparency/ 

Re: RTF for emacs

[Rusi]

On Friday, May 30, 2014 9:52:47 AM UTC+5:30, Rusi wrote:

> Here is an interesting link on 'programmer psychology'
> 
> http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/xgq27/uday_reddy_sharpens_up_referential_transparency/

I meant this subthread -- the woes of cutpasting across emacs and firefox :D

http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/xgq27/uday_reddy_sharpens_up_referential_transparency/c5mtgxq

Re: RTF for emacs

[Robert Thorpe]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:
> But if I had to do those short documents (and couldn't
> use plain text) I would want something that still isn't
> "compiled". I would want to see the changes instantly
> as I make them, otherwise it would be complete torture
> to produce any quantity of such documents. I don't know
> if Org-mode does that, probably.

To be honest I don't care much about WYSIWYG vs compiled.  I'll try Org and
Markdown.  I'll try LaTeX again if I get the time.

BR,
Robert Thorpe