Posted by Ralf Jahns on
URL: https://discuss.asciidoctor.org/Why-does-the-default-output-of-asciidoctor-pdf-look-so-ugly-tp7536p7544.html

Sorry, I really didn't want to put down anyones work.

I, as a software developer, prefer to create documentation in the way asciidoctor works compared to writing a word document. When I was a student, I used LaTeX a lot and never had any complaints about its output.

Few weeks ago, I had a "SW architecture" training and asciidoc(tor) was recommended to us (as a sidenote, we didn't talk about that very long).  I was quite enthusiastic about it. My expectations were high. I also know NOTHING about the maturity of the asciidoctor project.

One more thing I really appreciate is the quick answer I got to my writings. In the forums of many big projects, you get no answer at all (at least from the maintainers).

The company I work for, provides me a word template for a software design description document. Nothing fancy! I really wanted to try asciidoctor and because I was able to spend the time at the moment, I did it. After "compiling" the adoc, I was a little (sorry) disappointed about the look. Of course, that is also a question of personal taste! And I only look at the PDF output, the HTML output is completely useless for me, but probably not for most of the other users!

But, after all, I still think that these things should be changed:

Headings should be closer to following text than to preceding text. That's the way it is in every book I could find.

Table lines should be black. Why would anyone make them grey??? Quickly checked 1.2 meters of sofware development books and additionally a few more other non fictional books. None with grey table lines! All tables have black lines. (Some have no vertical lines.) In my humble opinion, the heading line could get emphasized a little more (perhaps by a grey background).

More than one font should be used. Perhaps it could be done like in LaTeX, which uses two (different font for the headings).

Every user can do this by himself. But why? This is NO work compared to what is necessary to develop such a nice tool as asciidoctor. But it will give everyone a much nicer first impression about the output!

Best regards
Ralf Jahns