I want to create parametric graphics that can be printed exactly on any printer:
setup some constants,
create some points,
create some lines with different line widths and line patterns between those points (a little bit like creating 3d-objects with OpenScad).
A simple example would be to print the net of a cube that can be printed on paper, cut and glued together.
I see following options:
use a normal programming language like Java and a pdf-creation library (see this question)
program using SVG (can this be printed exactly?)
What other options do you see or can you share experiences about the above options?
I'm a web programmer primarily, so I would create html representing what I wanted printed (in your case, it would require using html canvas element with javascript), and then use an html-to-pdf library to make a PDF. I use PrinceXML, but wkhtmltopdf will also do the trick.
HTML Canvas: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_canvas.asp
Prince XML: http://www.princexml.com/
Related
I'm generating some simple svg for data visualization and as part of that I need
to render several lines of text. I'm using the simple text/textspan. However when
determining when to break the line, I need to know the width of the string. Note that I am not using javascript, these are static svg diagrams. My manual mockups work fine on all three platforms(Mac/Windows 10/Linux) in several different browser. I've been searching, but all attempts to find anything about string widths involves dynamic SVG and javascript. Is there any data anywhere on the character widths of the default fonts? I'm using rather simple svg. I'm using the default transform and coordinate space as well. Or do I have to write a javascript test page to return the widths?
Thanks.
The standard font is determined by settings of the renderer. Browsers will use the same font they use for HTML content, set by the user and depending on fonts installed on their system. That means text size will differ for each end user.
There is no way around measuring the text after rendering.
I am trying to modify a SVG file which has a path converted from a text. I want to be able to manipulate it to create Word Art like effects (eg: Wedge, Widen, Curved text etc).
I've tried many options like parsing the file and modifying each point, but the results are bizarre and curves go wild. There is no tool/library to do this kinda stuff to an svg file.
In short, I am looking for a tool like ImageMagick but for svg. Please Help!!!
Inkscape can do some of this I think, also see this writeup by Tavmjong Bah. Inkscape uses a library called lib2geom to do these effects, and there seems to be a python wrapper for that library.
currently I produce dynamically this document with Python Report Labs… to produce pdf documents.
Now, I would like try to produce this document with Tex / Latex / ConTeXt…
I've some questions :
how can I make the layout ?
how can I make header background color ?
how can I define my custom title (with blue box) ?
what is the better choice for my project : Latex or ConTeXt ?
What package I need to use ?
geometry ?
fancyhdr ?
Have you some example ? some resource ?
Yesterday, I've read many many documentation… and I don't found a solution / example for my questions.
Some useful packages apart from the fancyhdr you already mentioned are:
titlesec for more control over your section titles
booktabs for more control over table layout
PGF/TikZ for the graphics in your document, i.e., the page turn effect in the corner and maybe the blue boxes (although that might be considered a bit overkill :))
memoir for more control over your document layout, but the package is more book-oriented than you need probably
koma-script might be a good alternative for memoir but I'm not familiar with it so I don't know about its weaknesses
This is list is not exhaustive and I am not experienced enough in this kind of typesetting meets lay-out stuff to be of much help, but these are packages that come to my mind given your problem :).
Using inputenc there shouldn't be a problem typesetting Russian text.
Maybe the actual process will be easier in ConTeXt, it is more oriented towards control over your typesetting but I'm not familiar with it.
Good luck!
I'd certainly do this kind of think in Context rather than Latex: Context permits grid layout, and allows you to define layers for putting text and other graphics on top of background graphics. But as Pieter says, you could try using TikZ to do this with Latex.
Unicode is no barrier to regular Latex or Context: with either, just specify that you want to use utf-8 as input encoding.
If you do use Latex, don't have headers or footers, and allocate no vertical space for them either.
With Context:
how can I make the layout? — Use grid layout.
how can I make header background color? — Use \setupbackground
how can I define my custom title (with blue box) ? — I don't understand what you want to do here.
Everything you need to do this, except grid mode and how to put graphics in the background, is documented in Context an excursion. Grid mode is explained in the Context manual. Layers are a bit tricky to get to grips with, but Layers in the Context wiki is a good place to start.
With titlesec and color packages use this in LaTeX head (before \begin{document})
\usepackage{titlesec}
\usepackage{color}
% Colors
\definecolor{textcolor}{rgb}{.90,.95,1}
\definecolor{boxcolor}{rgb}{.94,.97,1}
% Header style
\titleformat{\section}
{\color{textcolor}\normalfont\Large\bfseries}
{}{1em}{{\color{boxcolor}\rule{0.35cm}{0.35cm}}\quad}
to make the blue box and change header color, font and remove numbering.
I'm interested how to construct certain kinds of layout in RTF documents, ideally using techniques that do not depend only on the most recent RTF standards, and that are "native", i.e., they do not involve embedding other representations, like picture files. In particular:
In Postscript and DVI, I can specify a coordinate at any time that the next text will be printed at: can this be done with RTF?
Can RTF compose characters through overstriking?
Can lines, outline boxes and filled boxes be drawn, with their geometry specified either absolutely, or relative to text?
You can use the \pvpg \phpg \posx123 \posy123 construct after
you start a paragraph with \pard to position it relative to the top left of the page. See: http://biblioscape.com/rtf15_spec.htm#Heading39
Yes, but it's rather involved, and I think it was only introduced in RTF 1.5. See the drawing objects section of the spec. Here is a basic example of drawing a box (I'm not sure it's entirely valid but it should give you an idea of how to work with drawing objects):
{\rtf1\ansi\deff0
{\pard {\*\do
\dobxcolumn \dobypara
\dprect \dpx0 \dpy0 \dpxsize1000 \dpysize1000 \dplinew25
}\par}
}
If you're doing any work with RTF it's worth picking up O'Reilly's RTF Pocket Guide.
I don't believe this is possible. You'd need to use tabs and newlines to get the text where you want it.
Not really, unless \strike and \strikedl count.
http://www.biblioscape.com/rtf15_spec.htm#Heading52 says drawing objects are an option, and so is inserting images, but neither are really "native", both being absent in the first RTF specs. (And the latter is a bad choice for i.e. just a line.)
This may be a naive question, but I was wondering if there's a better way than using text() to adding text to a plot. Note, I'm also using layout() as well. Specifically, I have a section of a plot where I would like to add some text with headings followed by regular text.
text() is fine it seems for simple annotations, but to get the spacing right for several lines of text seems to require a lot of manual manipulation of the x and y and cex parameters. Any suggestions?
Here are some alternative options to consider:
- the gplots package has a textplot function to add some text output in a base graphics plot.
- plotrix has a function addtable2plot
- for grid graphics grid.text() is available and in gridExtra there is a function grid.table() (see, e.g., R-Wiki)
If you're using base graphics, then text() is probably your best bet, and fiddling with coordinates etc is part of the game. If you want to learn a new framework, the lattice package is a reworking of the basic approach to plotting in R. It be installed by default so help(package='lattice') will get you started.
Here's a pretty good guide (pdf) to graphics in general in R, with a substantial section on lattice:
download