Asciidoctor :: Discussion - Re: Flexibility of PDF Output and Hyphenation

Re: Flexibility of PDF Output and Hyphenation

Posted by mojavelinux on Feb 26, 2017; 1:49am
URL: https://discuss.asciidoctor.org/Flexibility-of-PDF-Output-and-Hyphenation-tp5303p5304.html

Welcome to Asciidoctor and thanks for the feedback.

You're correct that AsciidocFX is a editor / frontend for Asciidoctor. While we're excited about it's growth, you'll always get the best publishing experience using the Asciidoctor tools directly (esp as they continue to evolve themselves). That's true of any abstraction you introduce.

The official tool in Asciidoctor for converting to PDF is Asciidoctor PDF. Custom themes in Asciidoctor PDF are not developed in CSS, but rather a YAML-based configuration format that we developed. See the Asciidoctor Theming Guide (https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctor-pdf/blob/master/docs/theming-guide.adoc) for details.

It's not a goal of Asciidoctor PDF to provide advanced layout capabilities, at least not right now. The goal is to give publishers enough control to apply a unique branding to the document. Based on the research we've conducted, this is what most people want.

If you need advanced layout capabilities when writing in AsciiDoc, you should continue to leverage the LaTeX toolchain for publishing by converting AsciiDoc to LaTeX. You can do so using the LaTeX converter, available at https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctor-latex.

> the deeper I get into asciidoc-writing, the more it seems almost as complicated as using LaTeX.

I think you're confusing writing with publishing. I think it's safe to say most agree that writing in AsciiDoc is simpler than LaTeX. I'd be interested to see a side-by-side comparison that illustrates LaTeX as the simpler format.

Publishing is always difficult, no matter what format you write in. The Asciidoctor toolchain tries to ease this path by avoiding complicated or obtuse tools (like XSLT) and providing sane defaults, but it still requires talent to produce something that's both unique and professional. Over time, more templates will emerge that provide off-the-shelf solutions, but that comes at a trade-off of lacking uniqueness.

> What I could not find any information about is how to get hyphenation (in German) to work. An unhyphenated PDF would be an absolute no-go for me.

That's currently not implemented in Asciidoctor PDF, but it's both possible and planned. See https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctor-pdf/issues/20. If you need it sooner, and don't want to get into writing an extension, you can use the DocBook or LaTeX toolchains, which both support this feature. I recognize using these toolchains adds unnecessary complexity, which is why we're aiming for first-class support for hyphenation in Asciidoctor.

> Is there a way to influence the style of the index or the bibliography like in LaTeX?

In Asciidoctor PDF, not currently. If you want this feature and can describe the requirements, feel free to open an issue at https://github.com/asciidoctor/asciidoctor-pdf/issues.

To reiterate what I said above, you can always just convert to LaTeX and use the LaTeX toolchain. That's the flexibility AsciiDoc affords you.

Cheers,

-Dan

On Sat, Feb 25, 2017 at 9:56 AM, Beeblebrox [via Asciidoctor :: Discussion] <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hello,

as a LaTeX user for over 20 years now (on and off) I started using asciidoc(tor) a week ago, and I like the idea of less distraction at writing. Actually I did not write much yet, though, because I've distracted myself by collecting lots of information from the web about asciidoc(tor)'s toolchain - leaving me still confused.

Currently I'm trying AsciidocFX on Windows (which seems to include Asciidoctor) and the first thing I'm noticing is how little control I have over PDF output. It seems I'd have to create my own CSS stylesheet to get my desired style - which would be a major distraction from writing to me. The number of existing styles seems to be very small and they are rather IT biased. And even if I were CSS proficient I'd probably lack talent in design, so my style would probably be ugly :) Generally, the deeper I get into asciidoc-writing, the more it seems almost as complicated as using LaTeX.

What I could not find any information about is how to get hyphenation (in German) to work. An unhyphenated PDF would be an absolute no-go for me.

Another - less important - question: Is there a way to influence the style of the index or the bibliography like in LaTeX?

Thanks for listening,

B.

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NAML

Dan Allen | @mojavelinux | https://twitter.com/mojavelinux