Re: pdf - and on Windows?

[Mark Summerfield]

On 2009-01-24, James Mansion wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm considering lout having dabbled with raw TeX, LyX and some of the
> markup systems like T2T.
>
> I'm impressed by the book on PyQT that I understand is written with lout.

Impressed by the typesetting or the content---hopefully both;-)
Yes, I used lout for it, and for my other books.

I have a standard lout installation + PostScript Type1 fonts (in .pfa
format) which I embed in my PostScript files using a tiny Python script.
I then use ghostscript to convert PostScript to PDF and this produces
publication quality PDF.

Lout is generally brilliant: easy to learn and use (well, the hard bits
are hard but you don't often need them), excellent tables and diagram
support, very precise typesetting control (if you specify a font then
that's the font you get, no vague "big" or "small" etc).

My only caveats are:
    (1) No Unicode: lout gives you Latin1 and Latin2 and symbols and
    dingbats --- and that's it. (When I need odd bits of Unicode I
    generate an EPS file using a tiny PyQt script and embed the result.)
    (2) if you plan on using lout's indexing facilities and you're
    likely to have a lot of index terms (1000s) you will need a fast
    machine with plenty of memory and patience. (I have tried three
    different approaches to "fixing" lout in this regard and finally
    have a "solution" that reduces the pain and that I can live with.)

I only use Linux for typesetting, so can't comment on Windows.

-- 
Mark Summerfield, Qtrac Ltd, www.qtrac.eu
    C++, Python, Qt, PyQt - training and consultancy
        "Programming in Python 3" - ISBN 0137129297