Bug#139820: debian-policy: Overlong lines in .ps version
Hi,
I'm the current developer of the DebianDoc-SGML package.
era eriksson (era@iki.fi) wrote:
> Package: debian-policy
> Version: 3.5.6.1
> Severity: normal
>
> The PostScript version of the Debian Policy Manual has illegible text
> in some places. The debiandoc2latexps script is apparently set up to
> keep overlong lines together, rather than move the last token down to
> the next line. This results in problems when the overlong line is so
> much too long that it does not fit into the printable area of the
> paper sheet.
First of all, the script `debiandoc2latexps` is not setup in any way to
do anything special. All it does is convert the SGML source to the LaTeX
format, and then call `latex` and `dvips` to generate the PostScript output.
If in the SGML source certain tags have been used instead of certain other
more appropriate ones, then the authors of the document are to blaim, not
the tool processing the document.
> More than half of the pages I've looked at have this problem in its
> less dangerous form (right margin overflows but text is still
> readable) but the more problematic case is observable e.g. in the
> following places:
Please keep in mind that LaTeX sometimes has a mind of its own regarding line
wrapping.
> * page 58 (section 10.3.5 example script; default branch of big case
> statement -- corresponding to line 4760 of policy.sgml),
Examples are processed "as is" with an indentation of 4 spaces. This might
not lead to the best results in all cases, but so far I haven't heard any
complaints about this way of processing examples.
> * page 83 (12.8.5, items no 2, 9, 11, and 12; policy.sgml lines
> 6782, 6947, 6976, and 6991, respectively)
These are bugs in the SGML source: the tag <tt> doesn't break lines, the tag
<file> does (ok, these are technically not files but directories, but still...).
> * page 90 (13.6-13.7; policy.sgml lines 7493, 7512, and 7519)
Same problem as the one above: the wrong tags have been used.
> I could perhaps produce an exhaustive list, but changing the
> formatting mechanism so it doesn't produce these in the first place
> would no doubt be preferrable.
Changing the formatting mechanism wouldn't have helped in most cases; changing
the source (and with that I don't mean porting to DocBook ;-) would have.
I can also add an option to debiandoc2latex* to indicate lines wider then the
"textwidth".
Thanks,
Ardo
--
Ardo van Rangelrooij
home email: ardo@debian.org
home page: http://people.debian.org/~ardo
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