Re: How to create a PDF-Printer from the command line
On 2018-01-09, David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Perhaps before this protracted, tangential and niggling subthread
> becomes acrimonious or invidious, it might be easier to just state
Well, it did, through no fault of mine own, I must say, turn both
acrimonious and invidious. I have been neither (up till now).
Someone: use latex (to produce a pdf).
Someone else: That will produce a dvi-not what the OP wanted--two-step
rather than one-step operation.
Me: not so, use pdftex--one step operation (from *latex* to pdf).
Me correcting me: actually, you need pdflatex for *latex*.
You (a thirty-year veteran latex user we learn elsewhere): Please explain the
first step (which is how to create a latex file).
> than TeX/LaTeX is a useless way to turn a *text* file into a PDF.
Sure. However no one suggested that, did they? Did you think *I* was
suggesting that as a viable method or approach? I wasn't; I'm sorry for
your confusion; I was merely surprised to get legible pdf output from a
text file with pdftex (I think I did have to type '\end' in the
interactive console, though, maybe). YMV (Your Mileage Varied). That
particular tangent I meant only as an aside, for the pure scientific
interest of the thing. I mean in the interest of experimentation. (I
only went down that experimental road because when I wrong-headedly ran
pdftex on a latex file I had on hand and cycled through all the errors,
it did spit out a readable pdf file).
> And that's without discussing whether having to install a TeX system
> is any better than installing LibreOffice.
Yes, I know, you're all flying to the moon in 1969 and must fit
everything into a kilobyte or two.
But I did foresee this objection with my Gorilla-microbe metaphor,
although I needn't have done so as I was not the one to make the original
suggestion of latex for the production of pdfs in the first place.
> Cheers,
> David.
>
>
--
"Ruling a large nation is like cooking a small fish" - Lao Tzu
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