LaTeX calendar from org-mode agenda?

LaTeX calendar from org-mode agenda?

[Alan E. Davis]

I wonder whether anyone has worked up a solution to printing LaTeX
monthly or weekly calendars from an org-mode setup?

LaTeX calendars can get pretty cluttered up when printed from a diary
file, but perhaps tags would help.  I was able at some point to print
a LaTeX monthly calendar with entries listed in a separate file.
Perhaps later this summer I will look into this, but thought someone
might have solved this problem already.

Thanks,

Alan Davis

Re: LaTeX calendar from org-mode agenda?

[Alan E. Davis]

It seems possible that at least one of the LaTeX / org gurus on this
list has used LaTeX monthly calendars.  I have had some problems with
LaTeX calendars, but they look really nice, and it would seem not
unlikely to use that format as an output from Org-agenda.

I found LaTeX monthly calendars pretty ridiculous when they are
bloated with dozens of repeated tasks from the diary file.  A well
sorted list of events would seem to me to suite this nice-looking hard
copy calendar nicely.  To be sure, I'm not sure how well supported the
cal-tex-* series is at this point.  I had trouble printing them at
some point, even with help from the developer, Edward Reingold.

C'mon, doesn't anyone know something about LaTeX calendars that would help?

I am offline until my phone is transferred to my new residence.  Later
this summer, I'll find time to sift through this problem myself.

I apologize for repeatedly cluttering this list with often clueless
questions.   I like org-mode a lot and use it for all kinds of tasks,
but I've lost track of some of the more arcane features over the past
several months.  Summer looks a good time to start catching up.  The
ability to print out a nice, concise hardcopy checklist from
org-agenda would make a world of difference.

Alan Davis

On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 8:59 AM, Alan E. Davis <lngndvs@gmail.com> wrote:
> I wonder whether anyone has worked up a solution to printing LaTeX
> monthly or weekly calendars from an org-mode setup?
>
> LaTeX calendars can get pretty cluttered up when printed from a diary
> file, but perhaps tags would help.  I was able at some point to print
> a LaTeX monthly calendar with entries listed in a separate file.
> Perhaps later this summer I will look into this, but thought someone
> might have solved this problem already.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Alan Davis
>

Re: LaTeX calendar from org-mode agenda?

[Christian Egli]

"Alan E. Davis" <lngndvs@gmail.com> writes:

> It seems possible that at least one of the LaTeX / org gurus on this
> list has used LaTeX monthly calendars.  I have had some problems with
> LaTeX calendars, but they look really nice, and it would seem not
> unlikely to use that format as an output from Org-agenda.

Well, I haven't used it in a while, but there is code[1] in the contrib
section that generates hipster pda style calendars[2] for you.
Admittedly it just uses the cal-tex-* infrastructure, so if you have
problems with that, I guess this is of little help.

> I found LaTeX monthly calendars pretty ridiculous when they are
> bloated with dozens of repeated tasks from the diary file.  A well
> sorted list of events would seem to me to suite this nice-looking hard
> copy calendar nicely.  

Maybe you should define what your requirements are, i.e. how exactly you
want your calendar to look. Then as a next step you might want to try to
get a mock-up using tikz (and its calendar library)[3]. Once you have
that I'd be happy to hack up some lisp that generates the tikz latex
from say an Org Mode Agenda view or from a diary file.

> The ability to print out a nice, concise hardcopy checklist from
> org-agenda would make a world of difference.

OK, this seems like another requirement unrelated to the calendar above.
You know that you can export an agenda view to PDF, html or text[4].
If that is not enough, again, create a mock-up using tikz to make it
really nice looking. I will then help you to write the lisp to generate
the needed latex. I've long wanted some nice looking export of the
agenda. Your input might just give me enough impetus to hack something
up.

Thanks
Christian

Footnotes: 
[1]  http://repo.or.cz/w/org-mode.git/blob/HEAD:/contrib/scripts/org2hpda
[2]  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipster_PDA
[3]  http://www.texample.net/tikz/examples/feature/calendar-library/
[4]  http://orgmode.org/manual/Exporting-Agenda-Views.html
-- 
Christian Egli
Swiss Library for the Blind, Visually Impaired and Print Disabled
Grubenstrasse 12, CH-8045 Zürich, Switzerland