How to make a PDF.
On any page, click the Printable Version link; on the resulting page, press the PDF icon.
On any page carrying a Publish button, such as Strategy Index?, press the button; on the resulting page, press the PDF icon.
This is the #sor# for developing a Save as PDF feature associated with Printable Version and Publish pages. In the table below, Feature is an author’s view of the wiki capability; Priority is from } (nice to have) to {**** (essential); and Status is when in the #rt# the capability will be delivered. {:) indicates that a feature works and is built in. {8| indicates that a feature works as a demonstration. At this point, some features are #oos#.
The output is a server-based Save as PDF service, initially available for the tertiary wiki, but potentially available to any HTML-compliant web site. In keeping with the open source philosophy of “release early, release often” successive versions of the Save as PDF capability will be available at this site for testing, evaluation and feedback. The software will be released as open source, under the GNU General Public License.
Phase 2 adds the ability to save as PDF on the tertiary portal.
QStatement of Requirements
There are 4 ways an author can arrive at a printable HTML page carrying the
Save as PDF logo. These are:
- by pressing the Printable Version link at the bottom of every page
- by pressing the Publish button on selected table of contents pages, such as Strategy Index?
- by pressing the Publish button on Search Results pages
- by pressing the Publish button on the Calendar home page
| Feature | Priority | Status |
|---|
| include all text from the printable page | *** | Iteration 1 {:) |
| include all lists from the printable page | *** | Iteration 1 {:) |
| include all tables from the printable page | *** | Iteration 2 {:) |
| include all graphics from the printable page | *** | Iteration 2 {:) |
| show links to other sites as endnotes | * | iteration 1 {:) |
| make all links to other sites PDF “clickable” | {*} | Phase 2 {8| |
| turn WikiWords into numbered page references | * | Iteration 2 {:) |
| option to include content of all linked pages | * | Phase 2 {8| |
| ability to specify page headers and footers | * | Iteration 2 {:) |
| ability to do basic layout (font, text alignment) | * | Iteration 2 {:) |
| available on any printable wiki page | *** | Iteration 1 {:) |
| available on any wiki page | {*} | ? |
| available on any web page | * | Phase 2 |
| ability to register and configure authorised URLs | ** | Iteration 2 {:) |
| ability to convert any web address via a form | {*} | Phase 2 {8| |
| set up a web site pdf2you.com for the service | * | Iteration 3 {:) |
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QPublishing Directives
As part of Phase 2, page authors will have the ability to set selected characteristics of the pdf using the =pdf2you keyword=value start-of-line markup.
| Keyword | Values | Comment |
|---|
| title | text | appears on cover and in header |
| subtitle | text | appears on cover and in footer |
| tagline | text | appears on cover |
| cover | left center right | alignment of cover text |
| watermark | text | appears on every page |
| duplex | on off | format pages to print 2 sided |
| justification | on off | text justified or ragged |
| sectionnewpage | on off | major section starts new page |
| cache | on off | cache a copy of the generated pdf |
| tablelist | on off | generate a list of tables |
| figurelist | on off | generate a list of figures |
| draft | on | generates watermark=draft cache=off tagline=‘draft version’ |
For example:
=pdf2you watermark=draft title='Report Findings' justification=off
Note that the title is enclosed in quotes, as it includes spaces. Authors can also include references to relevant Special Markups?, such as title or group name variables.
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QRelease Timetable
- Phase 1, provide Save as PDF capability at this wiki, scheduled for completion by 30 November 2003
- Iteration 1: proof of concept (completed 30 September 2003)
- Iteration 2: functional prototype (completed 28 November 2003)
- Iteration 3: working solution (completed 19 December 2003)
- Phase 2, generalize the capability to other web sites, and in particular for the tertiary portal, scheduled to start in January 2004
- provide a way for people to invoke the service in HTML
- provide a way for people to register and configure their site or individual pages
- provide a way for site administrators to set pdf format parameters
- provide a web form where people can request ad hoc conversions
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QOut of Scope
The purpose of this feature is to provide good draft print quality; it is not intended to offer publishing quality output at this time. The format will be derived from the HTML markup; it is not intended to offer custom “print only” markup extensions. In Phase 1, the feature takes only what PmWiki gives it through its printable pages. The software is capable of producing book quality output, so it provides a platform for future development.
It would be possible to substitute print quality graphics for web graphics, if the source contains suitable markup to point to the appropriate graphic file.
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QSoftware requirements
- Perl and a standard CGI capable webserver such as Apache
- PerlMagick, the Perl interface to the ImageMagick image processing suite
- libwww-perl
- Various Perl modules - CGI, MIME::Base64, Digest::MD5, Data::Dumper HTML::TokeParser and HTML::TokeParser::Simple, which are available (along with most of the above) from CPAN
- The LATEX document preparation system, specifically including pdflatex
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