# Project idea: Ruby Press **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [June 8, 2007, 9:23am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/project-idea-ruby-press/106302 "2007-06-08T09:23:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Victor\_SZverokSS\_Sh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Victor\_SZverokSS\_Sh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Victor_SZverokSS_Sh)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2007, 9:23am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/project-idea-ruby-press/106302/1 "2007-06-08T09:23:34Z")
It seems to be cool idea if somebody with strong experience of printing and press would code his experience in Ruby, to have pretty DSL for making “book-like” and “newspaper-like” printing. I have in mind something like my\_book = book “My Book” do page\_size ‘A4’ units ‘cm’ type :brochure section “Title Page” do margin 0 columns 1 ``` section "Title" do padding :top => 20 font "Lucida", "36pt" align :center end section "Author" do font "Times New Roman", "20pt" align :right end ``` end section “Plain Pages” do margin [1, 1, 0.5, 0.5] ``` font 'Georgia', '12pt' columns 2, :space => 0.5 header do text_template self.number text_align :right end #hm... lots of other cool stuff? ``` end end my\_book.render\_pdf “mybook.pdf” { “Title Page” =\> { “Title” =\> “It’s my book!”, “Author” =\> “It’s me” }, “Plain Pages” =\> File.read(“mybook.txt”) } It can all look strange (as well as my English)… The main idea is: - DSL, which would be natural for press (headers and footers, columns, and other things, if you know…) - Under it, press-print experience coded accurately. - Special efforts for correct images and tables printing… What do you think? Am I reinventing TeX? V. ---
**Author:** ![Victor\_SZverokSS\_Sh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Victor\_SZverokSS\_Sh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Victor_SZverokSS_Sh)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2007, 1:08pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/project-idea-ruby-press/106302/2 "2007-06-08T13:08:10Z")
On Fri, Jun 08, 2007 at 04:22:37PM +0900, Victor Zverok S. wrote: > It seems to be cool idea if somebody with strong experience of printing and > press would code his experience in Ruby, to have pretty DSL for making > “book-like” and “newspaper-like” printing. > […] > What do you think? Am I reinventing TeX? Yes, that’s what I think 🙂 That said, it’s plausible that a Ruby DSL frontend to TeX (or, more likely, LaTeX) would be useful to someone, in much the same way that RJS is a frontend to (Prototype-/Scriptaculous-backed) JavaScript. I think it would be a terrible waste to reimplement all the well-tuned, well-tested, and pretty much bug-free typesetting/flowing/layout TeX/LaTeX provides. You might also want to look into rtex [http://rubyforge.org/projects/rtex](http://rubyforge.org/projects/rtex). It isn’t quite what you’re talking about, but a layer of helper methods on top of it might suit your needs. > V. > –Greg ---
**Author:** ![Victor\_SZverokSS\_Sh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Victor\_SZverokSS\_Sh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Victor_SZverokSS_Sh)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2007, 1:13pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/project-idea-ruby-press/106302/3 "2007-06-08T13:13:10Z")
On 08/06/07, Gregory S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > LaTeX) would be useful to someone, in much the same way that RJS is a > frontend to (Prototype-/Scriptaculous-backed) JavaScript. I think it would > be a terrible waste to reimplement all the well-tuned, well-tested, and > pretty much bug-free typesetting/flowing/layout TeX/LaTeX provides. > > You might also want to look into rtex [http://rubyforge.org/projects/rtex](http://rubyforge.org/projects/rtex). > It isn’t quite what you’re talking about, but a layer of helper methods on > top of it might suit your needs. > > > V. > > –Greg You could build something on PDF::Writer. There already is a simple markup language with the Ruby based parser that generates all it’s documentation. Farrle ---
**Author:** ![Victor\_SZverokSS\_Sh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Victor\_SZverokSS\_Sh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Victor_SZverokSS_Sh)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 2:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/project-idea-ruby-press/106302/4 "2007-06-09T14:50:57Z")
> > On Fri, Jun 08, 2007 at 04:22:37PM +0900, Victor Zverok S. wrote: > > > > > It seems to be cool idea if somebody with strong experience of printing and > > > press would code his experience in Ruby, to have pretty DSL for making > > > “book-like” and “newspaper-like” printing. > > > […] Sounds like it might be a good idea … I wrote a very simple book-generating program (in Python) using my xtopdf toolkit. Its called PDFBook.py and is part of the xtopdf package. xtopdf in turn uses the open source ReportLab toolkit, which is pretty good, IMO. So is PDF::Writer. xtopdf info and software is here: ``` http://www.dancingbison.com/products.html ``` The ReportLab toolkit is here: ``` http://www.reportlab.org ``` Vasudev Ram > **[dancingbison.com](http://ww38.dancingbison.com/)** > > Learn Python Programming ---
**Author:** ![Victor\_SZverokSS\_Sh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Victor\_SZverokSS\_Sh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Victor_SZverokSS_Sh)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 10:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/project-idea-ruby-press/106302/5 "2007-06-09T22:43:51Z")
I started something like that that was basically a Ruby DSL to Docbook using Builder + convenience methods. I called it Rockbook… I think I still have the code around somewhere. –Jeremy On 6/8/07, Victor Zverok S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > ``` > section "Author" do > columns 2, :space => 0.5 > > ``` > > “Title Page” =\> { > The main idea is: – [http://www.jeremymcanally.com/](http://www.jeremymcanally.com/) My free Ruby e-book: [http://www.humblelittlerubybook.com/book/](http://www.humblelittlerubybook.com/book/) My blogs: > **[Site not found · DreamHost](http://www.mrneighborly.com/)** > > The owner of this domain has not yet uploaded their website. [http://www.rubyinpractice.com/](http://www.rubyinpractice.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Victor\_SZverokSS\_Sh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Victor\_SZverokSS\_Sh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Victor_SZverokSS_Sh)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2007, 1:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/project-idea-ruby-press/106302/6 "2007-06-08T13:21:11Z")
Hi – On Fri, 8 Jun 2007, Gregory S. wrote: > LaTeX) would be useful to someone, in much the same way that RJS is a > frontend to (Prototype-/Scriptaculous-backed) JavaScript. I think it would > be a terrible waste to reimplement all the well-tuned, well-tested, and > pretty much bug-free typesetting/flowing/layout TeX/LaTeX provides. I once toyed with the idea of a Ruby DVI writer. I didn’t get anywhere with it, but it might still be a good idea. David ---
**Author:** ![Victor\_SZverokSS\_Sh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Victor\_SZverokSS\_Sh](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Victor_SZverokSS_Sh)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 11:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/project-idea-ruby-press/106302/7 "2007-06-09T23:30:57Z")
On 6/8/07, Gregory S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > That said, it’s plausible that a Ruby DSL frontend to TeX (or, more likely, > LaTeX) would be useful to someone, in much the same way that RJS is a > frontend to (Prototype-/Scriptaculous-backed) JavaScript. I think it would > be a terrible waste to reimplement all the well-tuned, well-tested, and > pretty much bug-free typesetting/flowing/layout TeX/LaTeX provides. I’ve had good experiences using ruby to generate lout - it’s more pleasant to work with than {la,}tex since machine generation was one of its design goals. martin