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Re: First steps exporting to tex


From: Juan Manuel Macías
Subject: Re: First steps exporting to tex
Date: Sat, 03 Apr 2021 22:46:02 +0200
User-agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/27.2 (gnu/linux)

Hi Jean Louis,

Jean Louis writes:

> Do you have a specific remark on what would be major wrong with the
> default LaTeX export from your viewpoint?
>
> For me, I like larger letters and more space on paper. I find it
> narrow and not enough legible. But that is not typographically
> technical comment.

It would be too long to comment here... The flaws of a typical LaTeX
ouput could be divided into formal defects and orthotypographic defects.
It's not LaTeX's fault (actually TeX and LaTeX represent the greatest
advance in typography since Gutenberg); the problem is that a book needs
a lot of fixes before reaching the printing press. And everything also
depends on each type of book and each book in particular: typography is
the science of exceptions. Luckily, TeX offers a lot of resources and
packages for fine tuning, and LuaTeX even more. I invite you to read the
documentation of these two packages: impnattypo
(https://www.ctan.org/pkg/impnattypo) and lua-typo
(https://www.ctan.org/pkg/lua-typo) where a part of these issues is
discussed.

Anyway, I am not saying that all average users should become experts in
typesetting. I just wanted emphasize that LaTeX is /just/ the tool (like
linotypes and monotypes were in his time) but LaTeX does not do
everything, although his standard output is of very good
quality compared to other systems. But that is so because TeX works very
well, it justifies very well the paragraphs, etc.

> [...]
> Org user may not need nothing about LaTeX. Even if exporting is often,
> Org user need not know nothing about LaTeX. Other converter like
> `pandoc' also offer conversion to LaTeX and user need not know nothing
> about it.

An average Org user does not need to know almost anything about LaTeX if
what he wants is just to produce /simple/ PDF documents. I agree. But
when he wants to do more complex things, he will need to know how to do
them in LaTeX and how to do them also from Org (in case he wants to
continue working in Org: even I work in Org when I do professional
typesetting, because for me Org is, among other things, the /almost/
perfect interface for LaTeX). If Org users get covered eyes with LaTeX
and LaTeX processes, then they will end up filling the Org forums with
questions that should rather be asked in the LaTeX forums (I am not
saying that it should not be asked here, but if no one knows anything
about LaTeX, no one could give answers to problems that are related to
LaTeX and not to Org). Let's imagine this hypothetical case:

User X enters the Org forum Z and asks: "How can I export to PDF with a
two colums layout?"

The correct answer is on the LaTeX side: "you have to use the multicol
package (and read the package documentation, if fine-tuning is
required)",

Once the LaTeX oracle has given its answer, the Org oracle will declare
that a multicols environment can be created in Org with a special block:

#+begin_src org
  ,#+ATTR_LaTeX: :options {2}
  ,#+begin_multicols
  .............
  ,#+end_multicols
#+end_src

Best regards,

Juan Manuel 




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