Caleb Maclennan

I've recently launched an idea at https://polytype.dev — a sort of Rosetta Stone for #typesetting engines.

The goal is to build up a sample gallery that showcases both differences and similarities between the input and output of #SILE, #TeXLaTeX, #Typst, #speedata, #weasyprint, #pagedjs, #groff, #satysfi, #patoline, and potentially others.

The source code is at https://github.com/alerque/polytype and contributions are very welcome! The UI in particular could use the touch of a front-end developer!

Polytype – Home

Dec 24, 2023 at 4:19pmWeb
Show threadYann Büchau Dec 24, 2023
@alerque Amazing idea! 👍
Show threadCaleb MaclennanDec 28, 2023
@nobodyinperson Any thoughts to suggest for spinning up #speedata, or #patoline in a Nix shell? I think I have almost everything else of note these days running, but Speedata has a messy build with no notion of an installation (which explains why it has never been packaged for any distro) and Patoline only builds against a legacy OCAML toolchain. Since it isn't a very active player in the #typesetter space I can write off the later for now but @speedata Publisher probably deserves a fair shake.
Show threadYann Büchau Dec 29, 2023

@alerque @speedata Neither of those are packaged in #NixOS it seems. 😔

But things like ridiculous build dependencies are exactly #nix's thing, so it might be worth trying to package it.

Show threadsirjofriAug 29, 2024
@alerque why groff though? Groff is troff with gnu extensions. I'm missing plain old #troff.
Show threadCaleb MaclennanAug 29, 2024
@sirjofri Troff is welcome, submissions in any variants (or other not-listed engines) are welcome. Groff was just what I happened to be the most familiar with.
Show threadthe roamerOct 5, 2024

@alerque

Interesting, thank you for producing this useful comparison resource.

(Myself, I use my own self-written macro package in plain TeX, unchanged in 27 years. I won't switch to another system, ever, but it's always good to see thoughtful and typographically intelligent designs in document-producing software.)

Show threadAmber Or BustOct 6, 2024
@the_roamer @alerque so did I! I created it while I was writing my thesis in the early 90s (I think I may have spent more time working on my macros then I did on writing the actual content!) and have been using it ever since.
Show threadthe roamerOct 6, 2024

@masp @alerque

It's incredible, isn't it, for an author to be able to produce perfect printing output with a single system, adapted by each author to their own needs, working identically across all the OS platforms and hardware generations they ever encounter, for a lifetime.

Thank you, Donald Knuth, you have given us authors true freedom.