latex-bfc.pl An enhancement of latex.pl to allow raw latex to produce multiple PNGs or embedded PDFs; now uses amsmath and hyperref packages by default. Requires pdflatex.

v1.2c (2008-07-10)

Now you can \includegraphics{pic.pdf} as written (we secretly add the ../ so as to look in $LatexDir where you really downloaded it.
Fixed silly bug where the security quoting of raw latex comments was quoting all previous comments.
Fixed silly bug where math & displaymath weren’t being produced as tight PNGs.

v1.2

Allows \includegraphics{../file} (by processing everything through pdflatex, cropping with pdfcrop and using convert to make PNGs)
Defaults to producing cropped PNGs
For single raw latex block, can override cropping and full-page format with {{{ $ [opt where opt can be png,pdf,pdffull,pngfull (pngtight, pdfcrop no longer works)
I tried really hard to get PDFs embedded in a reasonable way, but the embed and object tags are flaky.
Cropped PDFs as well as PNGs using pdfcrop.
Now has links next to each png to popup pdf, cropped pdf and latex.

v1.0

enhanced raw latex mode (not secure, so don’t let random people be editors!) (default $allowPlainLaTeX=1)
- {{{ • pdf • pdf tight • latex }}} to delimit raw LaTeX commands. Not suitable for use on a publicly editable wiki.
- raw latex produces full-page PNGs (one for each page) by default, with option to embed a PDF instead ($RawLatexOutput=“pdf”). This allows entire latex files to be displayed.
{{{ $[type[options]{class} are options.
- type is the filetype of the output and can be pdf, png or pngtight (margins clipped)
- {class} is the LaTeX \documentclass. [opt] are options for {class}. They are optional and cannot stand by themselves.
raw latex mode is restricted to Editors and Admins unless $RawLatexForAll=1
Advantages to raw latex mode versus restricting to math and displaymath modes.
- You can more easily include existing latex documents (just paste in the part between \begin{document} and \end{document} ).
- You can use many more environments, esp. environments like enumerate and align.
- You can include graphics. Post the graphics files in a pdflatex-friendly format (PDF, PNG, JPEG or GIF, not EPS) to $LatexDir and refer to a file as \includegraphics{file.pdf} .

To Do (latex-bfc.pl)

When upgrading the BFC site from beta, BE SURE to change $LatexDir back to latex
TODO. There must be an optimization here for cropping. Currently it goes .tex - .pdf - .ps - .tex - .pdf. Yeek. I tried to hack the equation service templates to get pdflatex to directly produce a cropped page, but I couldn’t make it accept multiple line inputs.
TODO. It would be nice to find a subtle place for the links. Maybe they hide until the image is clicked? A little JS.

Deferred/Done

MAYBE. Use Equation Service templates to trim PDFs (e.g. for calc problems)
MAYBE. How to cleanly push out config changes (e.g. $WikiLinks = 0; # No CamelCase links) to different sites.
- should set in bfc.pl defaults but allow people to change it in config? So in bfc.pl, $WikiLinks = 0 unless (defined ($WikiLinks)) ; # No CamelCase links
- check order of loading of variables (and modules!)
MAYBE. Allow pdf=1 to make optional cookie?
MAYBE. Make problem graphic a link to pop-up to give raw latex?
DONE. Allow loading special class file. Ultra raw mode where there’s no template?
WORKAROUND. Can’t adjust PDF embed window in custom way.???
â FIXED. PATCHED. MyMacro subs don’t affect comments.

Graphics Format

TRIED. Improve PNG look by producing higher res and scaling in browser?
- Browsers are not reliable scalers.
TRIED. For PDF embeds, calculate the width exactly. height too.
- I can look at the --debug output from pdfcrop (which shows gs’s Page 1: bounding box lower left x, y, upper right x, y.) But the embedded PDf still looks horrible.
TRIED. Use equation service templates to trim the PDF. (couldn’t quite figure it out… multiline output wasn’t working.

Option 1. PNG output.

Every browser understands it, readable with equations. Can use any latex.
Can’t get dvipng to look good.
hyperlinks won’t work.
â Improve the look of the dvi2png. Must be some way to boost the quality.
- â Try --truecolor and -density (doesn’t work)
- â Improve PNGs by converting PDF with imagemagick convert. (It doesn’t look any better. )

Option 2. PDF output.

Looks GREAT as text. Most browsers can read.
Idiot Adobe toolbars. TURN OFF?
hyperref does do links, but they open within the embed window. Not sufficient.
- Actually this works fine on Firefox/Win and IE7, to change the whole window. Same with Safari.
- The problem is with Apple’s PDF Viewer. Adobe Acrobat seems to handle it all right.

Rejected

Opt 3. TTH.
- tried TTH. Doesn’t look right and doesn’t support AMS-LaTeX.
Opt 4. Latexmathml.
- http://math.etsu.edu/LaTeXMathML/
  - DOESN’T WORK on IE7
- need to convert latex?
Opt 5. http://www.math.union.edu/~dpvc/jsmath/
- doesn’t like enumerate
- doesn’t like most environments
- can’t quite install right on my OS X side
Opt 6. latex2html.
- outputs equations to PNGs! Same quality issue as before.
- BUT, hyperlinks would work.
Opt 7. http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~gurari/TeX4ht/
- Still uses bitmaps for letters and figures
- BUT, some lovely lists of TeX-HTML utilities

latex-bfc

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