Moving to non-Word formats [long]

[Peter Flynn]

On 15/06/2020 23:36, Mike Marchywka wrote:
[...]
> What exactly is "outline mode?" I was working on a latex system to
> expand and contract various text blocks because often I want an ad
> hoc "outline" to bring say section headings onto the same page with a
> bunch of icons representing logical blocks like paragraphs.

Most LaTeX and XML editors display a sidebar with a kind of abbreviated 
ToC which can be clicked to navigate the document. Actually typesetting 
something like it instead of the document text is a job for a package, 
and neither of the two on CTAN (outline and outlines) do that at all.

> Although "pages" don't really have a meaning on computers either
> really. I got an almost proof of concept in evince (although the
> mouse offset from the text location was not quite right for the dvi
> display IIRC). I played with it a little, thought it had potential
> and then dropped it.

I just played with a few ideas but it needs more time, and I need more 
information about some of TeX's internals that I don't have on hand.

> Most of these things- latex too- don't seem to think of interactive
> documents but stick with static page images.

Yep. That's what they were designed for. But the new stuff, including 
LuaLaTeX, the LaTeX3 project, and a bunch of new processors, and 
whatever the NTS is up to, are doing interesting things.

P