Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:
Helge Hafting wrote:
Good idea, if only for "print as file".
I definitely meant "print to printer", not "print to file".
Those who want a file can still use File->export->pdflatex.
Why? We have "print to file", which should provide at least these two options.
(else, we should get rid of "print to file" completely).
Sure, we could get rid of "print to file" because LyX have all that
functionality
and much more on "File->Export" The only reason I can see
for having "print to file" is that people coming over from other
word processors are used to having it. But that reason isn't very strong
all the time the export menu is just as easy to get at.
Well, you get to choose the filename which is useful occationally.
Not only is this noticeably faster, but it also
support printing documents using the microtype package.
Modern LaTeX distributions use pdflatex also for DVI output.
Nice - that means the problem will go away. But what latex
distributions are considered "new"? I am using texlive from
debian unstable, which is usually recent enough.
TeXLive 2007 has it, I think teTeX 3 as well. I can't remember when the change
happened.
Hm. My texlive is version 2007, but view->dvi still produces a lot
more hyphenations than view->PDF does, when I have \usepackage{microtype}
in the preamble.
Still, view->pdf and view->dvi comes up different when microtype
is in use.
I think some microtypographic features are disabled in pdftex's dvi mode.
Ok, so there is a difference and it is not going away.
Unless this disabling is configurable.
Then I need File->print->printer to use the pdflatex way,
so my printouts won't typeset differently from my PDFs.
I use microtype in most documents.
The current workaround is to export or view PDF, and then
print the PDF from the command line or from the viewer.
It'd sure be nice to just "print" it. The future will likely bring
document classes (or .layouts) that specify microtype.
Simpler users probably won't understand why File->Print
doesn't match their PDF.
I understand that many people still will need the postscript print,
due to pstricks and such. So the question is how to implement this.
I have some ideas:
* A setting in "preferences" deciding what kind of export should
be used (dvips/pdflatex) when producing a file to chuck at the printer.
Of course this will decide the type of file produced by "print to file"
if that option is kept.
This way assumes that people rarely needs to make a change,
and so the print dialog doesn't get cluttered with it.
* A combobox in the "print" dialog. This assumes people
find it useful to switch back and forth, for example people
who utilize both microtype and pstricks - although not at the same time.
Again, the combobox can decide the output type for the
"print to file" too - assuming it isn't removed.
* The document can contain information abot what kind of
print capability is necessary. (I.e. LyX supporting microtype, and
makes sure such documents prints using pdflatex. LyX could
also support pstricks, at the very least by ensuring
that printing happens via dvips.
This is more userfriendly, as people won't _have_ to make sure
they print the "correct" way.
I hope to add microtype support later, it'd be nice to have
such documents print correctly in one way or another.
Helge Hafting
