emacs-pdf-README

emacs-pdf.el -- Emacs library to print buffer to PDF file.

* Example configuration

   (require 'pdf)

* Example usage

   M-x pdf-buffer

or

   M-x pdf-region

in example.txt will create example.txt.pdf file.

Some variables can be customized in pdf and ps groups.

* Download

   git clone https://logand.com/git/emacs-pdf.git

* Atom Feed

see https://logand.com/sw/emacs-pdf/atom.xml

* Why?

PDF have (unfortunatelly) become the standard format for exchanging
documents.

Emacs does not have a simple way of creating PDF documents yet.

There are many ways to create PDF documents in Emacs currently but all
of them require installation of huge external dependencies.

Printing from Emacs also pretty much depends on unsafe, unportable and
obsolete PostScript.

* What

emacs-pdf.el solves the above issues by creating PDF documents
directly in Emacs without any external dependencies.

The code is rather short but already takes it quite close towards the
goal.  Pages are automatically broken and counted, page headers and
footers are supported and a few things like font type or size can be
customized.

* TODO

unicode support: The biggest missing piece is support for non-ASCII
characters.  Emacs has already the best support for international
input and output of any software I know.  It would be nice to extend
that also to PDF generation.  I myself use several input methods and
characters not supported by PDF out of the box.  This is complex but
essential.

per file customizations: Should this be stored in a separate file
(instead of in-file syntax)?  I would really like to customize page
headers and footers and font type and size per file.

justification: It would be nice to justify paragraphs.  This would
require understanding of font metrics and will bring quite a lot of
complexity.

box justification: Justify the whole box right but justify the text
inside the box left.  Does it need special syntax or would a
convention be enough?

ruler: It would be nice to suport tab-stop-list or something like
that.

multiple columns: It would be nice to output text in more columns.  It
should be possible to control where exactly to turn it on and off so
maybe we need some kind of syntax for this?  If there is syntax for
this kind of stuff, what about syntax for justification and ruler?

colors: It would be nice to support color output.  What would be a
good way to have Emacs in reverse video (screen with black background)
but still support output to white paper without fiddling with faces
too much?

tables, pictures etc: Is there a reasonable subset for rich documents
without inventing new document format and reinventing TeX, roff etc?
Or just use abw or odt files directly?

* Discussion

see
https://www.reddit.com/r/emacs/comments/guffg5/emacspdfel_emacs_library_to_print_buffer_to_pdf/