May 2, 2022

Text documents: from PDF to vector images

Subject of this article

Recently I needed to convert some documents from PDF format, containing text generated by LaTeX in GNU/Linux operating systems, into vector images.

While avoiding conversion from online services, I basically found three interesting solutions: two in command-line mode (pdf2svg and pdftocairo) and one, very famous, in graphical mode (Inkscape).

In this article I report my evaluations highlighting some differences deriving from the source of the PDF documents and the behaviour of three Linux distributions.

April 8, 2022

LaTeX, three packages for one document

The standard version of LaTeX has a “state of the art” typographic quality, suitable for any type of document.

For those who want to try different typographical solutions it is, however, possible to use packages that modify the basic settings.

The result may be more or less preferable to the standard version but it is, however, interesting to make some comparative tests.

In this article I compare the title page of an agreement document in the standard version, in the version named koma-script and in the further version named ArsClassica.

February 26, 2022

Vim: copy text directly to the operating system clipboard

Cut and copy in Vim: introduction

As an introduction to the topic regarding the Cut, Copy and Paste functions in Vim you can read a previous article of mine.

The subject of the current article is, instead, a Vim functionality I discovered while reading this page and which is closely related to the previous topic.

Vim can directly redirect cut and copy operations performed on texts to the system memory register (clipboard).

February 9, 2022

Using Emacs to write scores in LilyPond

About LilyPond

LilyPond is a language for producing elegant musical scores, structurally similar to LaTeX with which it can integrate to generate documents containing text and music (for the integration between LilyPond and LaTeX you can read to this article of mine.)

Also in LilyPond, as in LaTeX, you can write the content with various editors.

Very useful, especially to learn the syntax, is the editor called Frescobaldi.

For those who have already learned the syntax, it may be useful, instead, to use the endless potential of Emacs and Vim,

January 28, 2022

Using Vim to write scores in LilyPond

About LilyPond

Also in LilyPond, as in LaTeX, you can write the content with various editors.

Very useful, especially to learn the syntax, is the editor called Frescobaldi.

For those who have already learned the syntax, it may be useful to use the infinite potential of Emacs and Vim,

January 15, 2022

Variables in LaTeX documents exported from Emacs Org Mode

The usual introduction to Emacs, Org Mode and LaTeX

This is the usual introduction to Emacs, Org Mode and LaTeX: if you already know everything you can skip it.

Org Mode under GNU Emacs is a very powerful tool for organizing ideas.

An excellent features of this tool is its ability to directly export documents from Org Mode to LaTeX, the absolute excellence for pagination, as well as to other languages such as Markdown and HTML.