[Gnu-arch-users] Systas2LaTeX2e, any interest in continuing?

[eval 747]

I wrote a quick script to take Systas output and
convert it to LaTeX2e.  Since I don't have any web
server space, I can't post a URL to it.  Here's the
README I wrote for it.  It still needs work but it is
functional as it is now.

It also required changes to the *.doc source.  Some
because I got sick of the inconsistencies and others
so that it made more sense.  The use of input*/ was
sporadic at best.  I went through and used it
everywhere that made sense.

Will anyone else use this?  Or is everyone happy with
Systas?  Have you seen the postscript output from
Systas?

Does anyone know of a GOOD way to produce a LaTeX
document with 1" margins?  I saw this on a FAQ.  It
works fine as far as producing 1" margins (with
pdflatex not dvips) but it makes *no* changes to the
headers and footers.  Thus they get overwritten.

% Use 1 inch margins
\usepackage{lscape}
\usepackage{setspace}
\usepackage{vmargin}
\setpapersize{USletter}
\setmarginsrb{1in}{1in}{1in}{1in}{0pt}{0mm}{0pt}{0mm}

I started on this a while ago but then I noticed
Carlos' email about a single PS file.  The tla
distribution contains one but it would be a pain to
read or print.  So I fixed this script up and made it
produce a pretty nice looking PDF.  It still needs
work but it shows potential.

------------------------------------------------------
README

Systas documentation conversion to LaTeX2e source
files script.

I'm stopping development at this point
to see if anyone else has an interest in this.  Maybe 
everyone loves Systas and I should go do something
else ...

This script takes Systas source and converts it into
LaTeX2e source in the form of a book.  I think when it
is completely done, it will be orders of magnitude
better than the Systas output.  I think Tom is tied to
that so thus this script.  If not, we could run with
the LaTeX files this script generates. :-)  It is
customized for arch in that I took advantage of some
of the patterns I noticed while browsing the *.doc
source.
 
Status: Currently it creates a book with a table of
contents (using hyperref) and has all of the contents
from the systas files.  It is complete in that way but
missing a few features/has a few bugs listed below:

0) Need to make the parsing able to handle multiple
tags on one line.  Not hard but someone *ahem* is
going to rewrite this anyway so I didn't worry about
it
1) Need to add support for ^text^.  It's not hard I
just didn't bother.  I think there's one other, * text
*.  Again, neither are hard.  I already implemented
support for \ text /.
2) Need to add support for the Systas view of the
index.
3) Need to filter out some more Systas (may require a
junk state).
4) Need to use the book tag in arch.doc to create a
good looking title page.  I'm only using the book name
and contains.  There are plenty of other tags that
could make for a good title or copyright page.
5) Need to implement xref: in LaTeX using hyperref.
6) Need to fix the 1 inch margins so they don't
overwrite the book headings.  If anyone has a good way
let me know.  I'm using the way I found in a FAQ and I
find it entirely unacceptable. :/  It is too close to
the page numbers and the book headers get overwritten.
7) Various other LaTeX2e improvements could be made.
8) Make sure the PDF version works in MS acrobat with
the bookmarks.  No client I know of under GNU/Linux
has bookmark support so I can't test it.  I did turn
it on.

To create the LaTeX2e version of the GNU-arch manual,
do the following (docs_listing.txt is a file with all
*.doc except arch.doc):

    $ perl Systas2LaTeX.pl docs_listing.txt
    $ perl Book.pl arch.doc
    $ pdflatex arch_book.ltx
    $ pdflatex arch_book.ltx

Yes, you need to run LaTeX twice due to the table of
contents.  Then you can use gv, xpdf, acroread etc to
read the book.

Systas2LaTeX.pl creates a LaTeX2e file for each of the
 .doc files listed in the parameter given to it. 
These files are to be included by a master file
because they don't have a preamble.

Book.pl creates a LaTeX2e file that is just a shell.
It merely includes all of the LaTeX files created by
Systas2LaTeX.pl.  This has the preamble and a bunch of
\input{} commands.

This is an INITIAL version.  It is not complete.  Some
of it is broken and the author knows this. :-)  I just
wanted to get a working version.

I'm sure $perl_hacker will have a different design in
mind anyway so I didn't bother making it OO, using
perldoc, etc.  It's a quick hack.  Someone with more
time should make a better version.  Yes, it needs more
error checking.  Yes I know there is a race condition
with the temp files.  Both easily fixable but I'm not
sure anyone will actually use this so I left them.

I had to do a LOT of:

input*/
   free form
/*end-insert

because it was very inconsistent in the original doc
files.  Some places would use the insert and others
wouldn't.  I think you could assume ^\s+ to find them
but I wanted to have it broken up into logical groups
in cases of just a newline.

In addition, there are quite a few inconsistencies in
the original doc files such as some files have headers
with the names, others don't.  Some files have excess
* on lines all by themselves and others don't.  I
think all of that should be standardized.  I think
this version has it all standardized.

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree