Re: [Chicken-users] [PATCH] PDF egg

[Peter Bex]

On Sat, Dec 15, 2012 at 07:38:37PM -0700, Matt Gushee wrote:
> Hi, Andy (and anyone interested in PDF generation)--
> 
> What *I* would like to see is a PDF lib that graphic designers will
> like--and font embedding is a key part of that.

+1.  Personally, I think the killer feature of a good PDF generating
library is the ability to do text flow and page layout.  I've been told
that this is very hard to do right, though.  The only free software PDF
generating library that's capable of that which I've found is Reportlab
in Python, with their "Platypus" engine.

Finally, I think the fps egg is the more Schemely way to do PDF
generation.  The pdf egg has a heavy imperative style while fps has
a functional design and has a SICP picture language flavor to it.
AFAIK Christian got started on a cairo backend for fps (which would
allow it to write to things other than PS like PDF, PNG, SVG etc),
but this hasn't been merged into the main trunk, I think.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts.

Cheers,
Peter
-- 
http://sjamaan.ath.cx
--
"The process of preparing programs for a digital computer
 is especially attractive, not only because it can be economically
 and scientifically rewarding, but also because it can be an aesthetic
 experience much like composing poetry or music."
                                                        -- Donald Knuth