This is the kind of thing that is ripe for Typst (https://typst.app/home). There is a CLI interface as well as a web app.
I’ve recently been working on a book using Typst after hacking LaTeX for many years. Through some examples and the docs I’ve already been able to accomplish much more customization on my own, rather than cargo-culting 20-year old snippets and packages, and the results are readable and maintainable. I don’t know if Typst will completely supersede LaTeX, but this point I think it is capable of doing so and I will be upset if it doesn’t.
I’ve been doing LaTeX for some major portion of its life and I’ve see so many “LaTeX killers” come and go. But my documents from 25 years ago still compile and render.
Wow, I was initially very enthusiastic about lout, and I still think it had some good ideas. I just remember the templates not being as easily hacked/tweaked as (La)TeX, and the advice was generally "accept how it already works" when people asked how to adjust things. Not a good sign. Also I remember--at least I think I do--that the source files had arbitrary f01.c f02.c f03.c names, so it was hard to guess where anything was. That was strange.
That's been my experience; either it's a beautiful template that does almost everything you ever wanted, but if you want that last 1-5%, you're doomed, or it's just another LaTeX-style tool that may be objectively better in some way, but it's fighting against 25+ years of experience getting LaTeX to do exactly what I want it to do (and providing quite sane defaults when I don't care).
It has a web app and a CLI. LaTeX also has both - it's just that the Typst web app has better integration with the actual engine than the various LaTeX web apps.
I can't predict the future by I really liked typst. I really hope they will find their market. And I almost wish I was still using latex to replace it with typst
For my novel, I wanted to have a different style for conversations (or events) that are happening simultaneously. And I wanted to use Markdown. Rather than sprinkling TeX commands throughout the document, I use annotations, which were introduced by pandoc. Annotations resemble:
::: {.concurrent title="Hacker News Thread 1"}
I'm writing in an HN thread.
:::
::: {.concurrent title="Hacker News Thread 2"}
This is a separate thread.
:::
Creating a theme for tabletop role-playing games would take some elbow grease. When finished, it'd mean people could write their documents in Markdown and reuse the same theme, without having to know how TeX commands work. Knowing TeX commands is a barrier to entry for a lot of people.
CTAN also has packages for Basic D&D-inspired typesetting (rpg-module, also linked from the article), GURPS (gurps), generic hex boards (hexboard), and wargame hex boards with counters (wargame).
I understand the desire to use Markdown - if you’re not using an editor that will dump the “begin/end” for you with a keystroke or two it feels faster.
The SVG output is written to a local file. KeenWrite converts Markdown to XHTML (XML), which references the local file. ConTeXt then typesets the XML, importing the local vector graphics file and formats it according to the setups defined by the theme.
Kroki has other text-based formats for flow charts, Gantt charts, UML diagrams, packet diagrams, network diagrams, etc.
To be concrete, create a file named "example.md":
Mind Map:
``` diagram-plantuml
@startmindmap
skinparam monochrome true
+ OS
++ Ubuntu
+++ Linux Mint
+++ Kubuntu
+++ Lubuntu
+++ KDE Neon
++ LMDE
++ SolydXK
++ SteamOS
++ Raspbian
-- Windows 95
-- Windows 98
-- Windows NT
--- Windows 8
--- Windows 10
@endmindmap
```
I love this idea so much. It’s a shame that it would all get lost when passing through a recruiter or when needing to re-enter all the info on applications.
Don't you think that needing to re-enter your information on a job application basically guarantees that nobody will read your CV? It seems to me that situations like that are when the potential employer is going to use automated analysis rather than discretion, and are getting you to do the data entry for it!
The Overleaf one is really good, IMO. Most links I've clicked on in this comment section are close, but still feel a little off in terms of the final PDF. It's small things like spaces and fonts, but enough to give the result an uncanny valley kind of feel: you know you're supposed to look at a 5e document, but it's just not quite the same.
The Overleaf package, however, comes very close if you ask me.
https://www.overleaf.com/ is the result of the merger of two startups, Overleaf proper and ShareLaTeX, and is a Web-based, zero-install way of using LaTeX.
It is the gold standard for collaborative scientific publishing with distributed teams, which has become the norm in the sciences and engineering, if not yet in the humanities (where emailing *.doc file drafts around has not yet died the death the bad habit deserves).
Personally, I find the Overleaf web editor to be worse than a local editor (even with Vim keybindings, dark theme, etc.)
But if your organization pays for Overleaf, you can sync Overleaf projects to local Git repos - and just pull / push as you would any other Git repo.
This is the best of both worlds IMO, since collaborators that don’t know Git can use the web editor without prior knowledge, while collaborators with strong opinions about editors usually know Git (or are willing to learn it).
There is also a Dropbox sync option, but I don’t recommend it. I’ve experienced bugs several times where TeX files suddenly become empty when using it.
I've been doing this for a while now. Initially, it was an easy way to generate good-looking screen PDFs, but I've even branched into print-ready files now.
Sadly very light on the subject matter of the title, mostly just a very brief LaTeX introduction page. The interesting content is the outlinks in the intro, existing templates that mimic D&D, either old school 2e style[1] or modern 5e aesthetics[2].
Man for a second I thought that that first package on ctan actually included defining the map as well - looks like it’s just a static image though. They really did nail the design.
Would have been nice if they started with an example pdf of what the output would look like, rather than just give a bunch of code and ask us to compile it ourselves.
If you're looking for a GUI editor for your LaTex content, personally I like Lyx [1]. It's featuresome, easy to use, and also includes outline navigation.
I love the way LaTeX output looks and so I've dabbled. I've been very happy with the results using templates written by others. But I occasionally need something slightly customized and I feel a bit hopeless. I've just never taken the time to get comfortable with the details.
There is a LaTeX package called “memoir” which is basically a “modpack” for LaTeX - and it has a detailed manual on how to do various customization things.
I use Plain TeX (I have tried to use LaTeX once and I found Plain TeX easier to work with and get right how I intended). I have written macros to do what I wanted, including headings, automatic table of contents, cross-references, and also black bars on the edge of the page to indicate chapters and sections so that they can easily be found by the edge of the book.
Since \write in a page is only valid if the page is shipped out, and the references of pages will need to be known before they are printed, so instead I used insertions for this, and the insertion contains altnerating marks and penalties, which are then using \vsplit in the output routine to extract the marks and execute them without shipping out the page during the first pass.
Another use of insertions is tables that span multiple pages, that it may automatically add "(continued on next page)" and repeat the table headings on the top of the next page.
And, it is also helpful to include mathematical equations in the text; in my opinion that is one of the problems with many other RPG systems that doesn't have enough mathematical equations.
It is not yet completed, but it is (and will continue to be) 100% public domain.
Speaking of RPG layout troubles, does anyone know of a good package/method of easily placing images? LaTeX itself is mostly focused on figures, and the solutions I found (like e.g. D&D 5E layouts) are rather specific.
Ideally I'd like something where I could both place the image itself (e.g. left/right/upper/lower half of page), and the content within it ("150% zoom, centered on x:431 y:200")
I used to use LaTeX for RPG manuscript formatting. I still do, for some small side projects.
Thing is... while it's good for consistency and tracking changes, it's horrible for the creative process, layout-wise. Visual editors like Affinity Publisher are much better for other-than-trivial layout concerns.
Need to write something with Japanese, traditional chinese and simplified chinese. Quite a challenge. Especially clash with some other package. But still it works. Just a bit of learning curve.
You're supposed to write things like `\chapter{the title}` (so focusing on the content) instead of dealing with: font family/size/weight/variant/shape, text color/flushing/decoration, you know all those formatting you're always playing with with text editors for example.
I’ve recently been working on a book using Typst after hacking LaTeX for many years. Through some examples and the docs I’ve already been able to accomplish much more customization on my own, rather than cargo-culting 20-year old snippets and packages, and the results are readable and maintainable. I don’t know if Typst will completely supersede LaTeX, but this point I think it is capable of doing so and I will be upset if it doesn’t.