PDF exporter

[bdhrs]

The suggestion came up to render a PDF of DPD, which can be used in a number of scenarios that software cannot. Where to start the process? @gambhiro I know your PDF's are always immaculately styled, do you have a template that can be adapted? @Devamitta

[Devamitta]

I think can be something similar to combined-dictionary format.

[bergentroll]

May I say there are two nice solutions to make PDF with Python:

• ReportLab
• PyLaTeX

The second depends on large LaTeX runtime, but may give more "book" style.

[gambhiro]

I use LaTeX to make books and it's certainly suitable for the task, but getting the style macros right is arcane, compiling the PDF is slow, and there is no incremental build. (One may not need a complete TeXLive setup, the Tectonic project aims to create a minimal install.)

I recommend this project instead: https://typst.app/

They aim to be a LaTeX replacement but with modern programming. It has a decent template and scripting function. It requires a single binary download to produce a PDF. It can watch a file for changes and make incremental PDF compilation.

You could approach it by writing templates like the HTML rendering, but producing the Typst syntax instead.

Another (more technically challenging) way would be to read CSV or JSON with Typst scripts, maybe a plugin with Rust, and render the words from Typst.

This is the table syntax, they try to impress you with the math but it's just a comma separated list of items: https://typst.app/docs/reference/layout/table/

Core templates: https://github.com/typst/templates

Community projects: https://github.com/qjcg/awesome-typst

HTML and EPUB rendering is on their roadmap:

https://typst.app/docs/roadmap/

[gambhiro]

Pandoc now has both reader and writer support for typst.

So if you generate typst format, typst can build the PDF and pandoc can produce HTML and EPUB.

It's a useful bridge until typst implements those exports.

[Devamitta]

Completed with https://github.com/digitalpalidictionary/dpd-db/tree/main/exporter/pdf