I would like to propose that a "make pdf" target be added to the GCC
general makefile.
I did a search to see if there was any previous discussion on this, and
what I found were a few messages from 1999 and 2001 that seemed to imply
that it might be a good idea, and even included a partial patch, but the
conversation apparently died without anything coming of it.
Personally, I find .pdf files to fulfill a similar niche as .dvi files,
but much more usefully. Support for them on current computers is far
more widespread, and they're more portable. They're also my preferred
means for looking at this sort of thing on-screen, but I acknowledge
that I'm weird that way and more people like html. :)
In any case, some observations that I think are relevant to this proposal:
* Generating .pdf files is exactly like generating .dvi files, except
that one uses "texi2pdf" instead of "texi2dvi". Thus, the makefile
additions should be quite straightforward.
* Making the .pdf files by hand with texi2pdf is a pain, because of
include files in various directories.
* Using "make dvi" and then running dvipdf on the results is not a
complete substitute. When the .pdf file is made directly from the .texi
file, it gets a table-of-contents menu of hyperlinks that shows up in
Acrobat's "bookmarks" pane and is invaluable for quickly locating things
within the document; also, all of the in-document hyperlinks (@uref,
etc.) are proper links. None of that happens with "make dvi" and dvipdf.
* Having a "make pdf" target makes it considerably easier for people
like me who have a TeX installation but no .dvi viewer to run a
TeX-based check of their documentation changes, thereby (I suspect)
reducing the number of format-specific errors that creep in.
I would be willing to do the work of figuring out the relevant makefile
changes and submitting patches, but before I do that, I'm curious as to
whether or not such a change is actually likely to get approved.
Comments? Suggestions on how to go about doing this?
Thanks much,
- Brooks
