Quote:
Originally Posted by DawnFalcon
No, you don't need to use a DVI driver, but any other means of rendering is going to have higher overheads. It's what DVI is designed for, after all. In the meantime, you're saying that the PDF output works? Well yea, but that dosn't deal with my requirement, for instance, for multiple screen sizes without using different documents and losing my annotations.
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I don't see why not. The above are all created with the same document, and attaching annotations would not be difficult. The overhead issues with PDF output would not significant long-term (and indeed barely exist now; my experience is that PS or PDF files are about 30% larger than the corresponding DVI files), and while I don't really know how hard it would be to produce a DVI driver for ARM (I doubt very), it's probably the sort of thing that no one has even attempted, but might if there were a reason to.
I look forward to when ePub renderers can do MathML. I've looked at MathML somewhat, and while it fits the bill with this sort of thing in the sense that it would give a decent look, it is seriously bloated compared to TeX, and would be nightmare to actually compose in. In fact, I think right now most people write in TeX and convert to MathML. It's one of the only ways to actually produce MathML.
But in principle I have no qualms about MathML; my arguments have been in favor of a better renderer; I don't care if that renderer uses TeX source or some kind of (X)(HT)(Math)ML, as I've explained multiple times -- it just needs to be improved to the same level as is already possible with TeX. (I was the first person in this thread to mention MathML.) My problem has never been with ePub. Indeed, I've said multiple times that I have hopes that we can get this kind of quality rendering with ePub. The only thing I've suggested is that, firstly, until we get a decent renderer for ePub, PDF is still a worthwhile format. And seconly, I've suggested that since TeX exists as an alternative source format, where just about all the tools we'd need are already in place, there's no reason to set our expectations low: if corporate publishers don't want to switch to it, then they owe us something as good (which could certainly take the form of extended ePub mark-up with a better renderer...)
Putting both fixed and reflowable formats into the same document is a so-so compromise, but it really seems unnecessary, since just about all the tools needed for a typographically superior reflowable single document already exist.