Re: org-mode export to (latex) PDF

["Juan Manuel Macías" <maciaschain@posteo.net>]

Hi Jean-Christophe,

Jean-Christophe Helary writes:

> I had given up on Latex because mixing languages sounded like a huge
> pain in the butt but I see that without some org-level infrastructure
> it is not possible to achieve much when exporting to Latex/PDF (unless
> I missed something).

Well, LaTeX has excellent (typographic and orthotypographic)
multilingual support, using the babel or polyglossia packages. I
especially recommend babel:
http://mirrors.ctan.org/macros/latex/required/babel/base/babel.pdf

And LaTeX also has very good support for oriental languages or languages
with complex writing, especially in LuaTeX. In LuaTeX and XeTeX you can
also use opentype fonts and opentype features.

The problem is how to translate that from Org --in an org-centric way--
to LaTeX. Currently, you can apply LaTeX commands for multilingual
management directly in your Org document. For example:

#+LaTeX_Header: \usepackage[several langs]{babel}

@@latex:\begin{otherlanguage*}{german}@@

... some text in german ...

@@latex:\end{otherlanguage*}@@

Recently, I submitted a patch here that allows adding LaTeX attributes
to `quote' blocks. Then, you could do something like this:

#+LaTeX_Header:\usepackage[german,english]{babel}
#+LaTeX_Header:\usepackage{quoting}
#+LaTeX_Header:\usepackage[babel=true,autostyle=true,german=quotes]{csquotes}
#+LaTeX_Header:\SetBlockEnvironment{quoting}

#+ATTR_LaTeX: :environment foreigndisplayquote :options {german}
#+begin_quote
Eine Erklärung, wie sie einer Schrift in einer Vorrede nach der
Gewohnheit vorausgeschickt wird ---über den Zweck, den der Verfasser
sich in ihr vorgesetzt, sowie über die Veranlassungen und das
Verhältnis, worin er sie zu andern frühern oder gleichzeitigen
Behandlungen desselben Gegenstandes zu stehen glaubt--- scheint bei
einer philosophischen Schrift nicht nur überflüssig, sondern um der
Natur der Sache willen sogar unpassend und zweckwidrig zu sein (Hegel).
#+end_quote

Best regards,

Juan Manuel