On Wed 10 Jan 2018 at 10:31:14 +0000, Brian wrote: > On Wed 10 Jan 2018 at 09:02:08 +0000, Curt wrote: > > > On 2018-01-09, David Wright <deb...@lionunicorn.co.uk> wrote: > > [...] > > > > And that's without discussing whether having to install a TeX system > > > is any better than installing LibreOffice. > > > > Yes, I know, you're all flying to the moon in 1969 and must fit > > everything into a kilobyte or two. > > > > But I did foresee this objection with my Gorilla-microbe metaphor, > > although I needn't have done so as I was not the one to make the original > > suggestion of latex for the production of pdfs in the first place. > > Given a willingness to devote the necessary resources to the task, a > decent case can be made for using unoconv to convert text (and other > document types) to PDF. The method relies on starting unoconv as a > listener in the background (unconv -l &). X is not required. > > Quite a sophistcated conversion engine can be constructed; text, MS > Word, ODT. RTF etc to PDF. Printing to a real printer or to file can > also be built into the system. I sometimes wonder whether this is > used as the basis for some of the online conversion services. > > Simplicity, txt2pdf et al, can be an advantage but having multiple > methods at hand cannot be bad.
Another plus for unoconv is that it will process a text file to produce a PDF/A compliant file. If Latex was not completely out of the running, it is now. (Whether or not it is regarded, irrelevantly, as text). -- Brian.
