POSTS

Render Latex Multiple Ways

March 17, 2021

Summary

This post is about LaTeX to PDF and LaTeX to HTML. It's preparation for the TeX Hour tomorrow (Thursday 18 March). In case you didn't know, every Thursday (18:30 to 19:30 UK time) there's a zoom TeX Hour. The zoom URL and other details here.

At tomorrow's TeX Hour I'll attempt to give a history of producing PDF and HTML from a single source file, and related topics. Also, questions can be asked and there'll be discussion.

Most of the session will be recorded, so you can catch up later if you missed it.

What does render mean?

To render means to give or provide. The famous phrase

Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.

shows that to render something is to provide it in a way that is appropriate to both the given and the receiver.

Why multiple ways

We transform a LaTeX source file the better provide some person with information. This should be done in an appropriate way. It helps if the author wrote using Plain English (URL at foot). Some persons might prefer a translation into another language. And some persons might blind or have some other disability.

Part of the essence of accessibility is making reasonable adjustments when both required and possible. Another part is to plan ahead. Of the 67 million people in the UK, almost 2 million have some sight loss. Of these, around 360,000 are registered blind or partially sighted. (About 3 million people live in Wales, which has its owm Parliament.)

Literate programming

Along with developing TeX, Don Knuth created and implemented Literate Programming. This is a special case of rending in multiple ways. One reader is a human being. The other reader is a technical piece of computer software, name a programming language compiler.

LaTeX to HTML

The first release of HTML was in 1993. In 1996 Nikos Drakos wrote the program LaTeX2HTML, which translated LaTeX source files to HTML, as well as it could.

At that time, HTML was the new kid on the block. TeX was started in 1978, and was close to its present form by 1982. LaTeX was released in 1984. So when LaTeX2HTML was release, TeX was 14 years old and LaTeX 12 years.

Today, all are roughly the same age. TeX is 39, LaTeX 37 and LaTeX2HTML 28 years old. Over this time HTML has moved on. The major version HTML 4 is now 23, and HTML 5 is a mere child at 7 years old.

HTML and PDF

Today HTML is a the dominant media, along with streamed video and audio. However TeX-generated PDF is dominant in niches such as STEM research, particularly mathematics, physics and computer science.

Usually, HTML is the preferred media for resolving accesibility problems, and there's much effort to make web sites accessible to all. (However there's not enough effort to prevent redesign and change worsening accessibility.)

In it's time, LaTeX2HTML was the dominant translator. So far as I can tell, it has no clear successor. Instead, several groups have attempted to create better translators.

Python, LaTeX and RST

Originally the Python docs were authored in LaTeX, and a modified version of LaTeX2HTML was used to produce online pages. Around 2002 they switched to a designed-for-purpose markup language called RST. From this single source both LaTeX for typesetting and HTML for the web were produced.

In July 2016 the Linux kernel project decided to transition from DocBook based documentation to reStructuredText and the Sphinx toolchain.