Thread: [HACKERS] pdf versus single-html

Hi,

With the pdf increasingly in readability-decline (more and more text 
parts fall off the (right) side of the page and quite a few tables 
contain unreable bits) I would like to have a single page html. (cf the 
bash scipting guide at http://tldp.org/guides.html  even if that is 
smaller than our html (2.3 MB vs 12 MB))

Simple concatenation is trivial but to keep the texts in the correct 
order, and to keep the links working is a bit more complicated.

Ideally I'd like a single file with chapter-headings either at the top 
or even (gulp) in a left-hand frame.

The goal is to make the text directly searchable, like one can do in the 
pdf.

It might even be good to include such a single-file html in the Makefile 
as an option.

I'll give it a try but has anyone done this work already, perhaps?

Thanks,

Erik Rijkers

Erik Rijkers <er@xs4all.nl> writes:
> With the pdf increasingly in readability-decline (more and more text 
> parts fall off the (right) side of the page and quite a few tables 
> contain unreable bits) I would like to have a single page html.

Given the size of our manual, I find it hard to believe that most
readers would perform acceptably with that ... have you tried just
concatenating all the parts manually and testing performance?
        regards, tom lane

On 2017-01-21 17:12, Tom Lane wrote:
> Erik Rijkers <er@xs4all.nl> writes:
>> With the pdf increasingly in readability-decline (more and more text
>> parts fall off the (right) side of the page and quite a few tables
>> contain unreable bits) I would like to have a single page html.
> 
> Given the size of our manual, I find it hard to believe that most
> readers would perform acceptably with that ... have you tried just
> concatenating all the parts manually and testing performance?
> 

Yes, id did a straightforward concatenation; and it's really not a 
problem: it comes to a 15 MB file (12 MB when skipping the release 
pages).  Either size (in standard firefox) takes some time (seconds) but 
scrolling and searching is no problem.

Maybe I wasn't clear: I wouldn't argue to make single-file the default 
output, of course; just an option to choose if it's at all possible.

And even if such an option isn't deemed feasible I was hoping that 
someone more xslt-knowledgeable than I am has some hints on how to 
produce a single html file in the correct order and with link correctly 
(self-)referencing.

I might figure it out myself - in that case will post here.

thanks,

Erik Rijkers

On 1/21/17 6:29 AM, Erik Rijkers wrote:
> It might even be good to include such a single-file html in the Makefile 
> as an option.
> 
> I'll give it a try but has anyone done this work already, perhaps?

Already exists:

doc/src/sgml$ make postgres.html

-- 
Peter Eisentraut              http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services