Re: JadeTeX issues (Was RE: DOCBOOK: PDF graphics)

[Adam Di Carlo <adam at onshore dot com>]

Thorbjoern Ravn Andersen <ravn@mip.sdu.dk> writes:

> It has concerned me while looking at Jade that it did not produce plain
> TeX or LaTeX files, but something which requires additional stuff.  Is
> there someone who have used this so much as to know about the internals,
> why this is neccesary?
> 
> o  Too large output otherwise?
> o  Jade cannot produce correct TeX code?
> o  It was the easiest way to do it?
> 
> Any comments/

Actually, I think it would be highly possible and in fact desirable to
eliminate the jadetex/pdfjadetex "layer" entirely.  In short, writing
a jade backend that just used PlainTeX (right?) instead of requiring a
specific Jade macro set (which is based on LaTeX).

There would be many advantages to this approach; for one, it wouldn't
require additional software to be installed.  For two, I think the
whole thing would be easier to maintain.  In fact, I think this is the
approach that Sebastian (the JadeTeX author) is taking with
PassiveTeX, although that system is XSL rather than DSSSL based.

If anyone is really interested in implementing it, they should get in
touch with the openjade group <URL:http://openjade.sourceforge.net/>.
They would have to have both TeX and C++ expertise.  Probably the RTF
backend would be a good codeset to start from; I'm not sure.

-- 
.....Adam Di Carlo....adam@onShore.com.....<URL:http://www.onShore.com/>