[texinfo-pretest] Re: Project: texi2latex

[Torsten Bronger]

Hallöchen!

vale.it at tiscali.it writes:

> [...]
>
> regarding equations and maths and info: well, the trick would be
> just to describe the math info cannot represent... as a matter of
> fact the latex math conventions are complex but quite easy to
> understand.
>
> \fract{1}{2+3} in Latex would be 1/(2+3) in info...
>
> and so on...

(makeinfo has to cope with {1 \over 2+3}.)

rms may hire an assassin for me(*), but it's very simple to do this
with MathML as the origin.  This is true for all other formats,
too.  So: Convert Texinfo to XML losslessly and create DocBook,
HTML, and LaTeX from there!  :-)

> the real advantages latex would give is the possibility to pass
> commands regarding the hardcopy layout as well as input and font
> encodings, etc. if we could find the minimum common denominator of
> latex and texinfo lexical structures it would be a good leap frog.

This is a very important point.  How do we pass layout information
to the backends?  Plain TeX is clear.  DocBook contains no layout.
makeinfo's HTML has a CSS hook and the single/multiple file switch.
But can one pass layout directives to a "back-backend" like my
texi2latex?  Or must they reside in a separate cfg/sty/whatever
file?

I don't remember wheter @c comments are included into the XML.  If
so, they could be used to transport meta info like in Postscript.
*shiver*

Tschö,
Torsten.

(*) Forunately, I am too unimportant.  ;-)
-- 
Torsten Bronger, aquisgrana, europa vetus