[l2h] paper copies from a l2h'ed document

[Ross Moore]

> Hi,
> 
> Yesterday I installed LaTeX2HTML(2K.1) and netpbm(9.20) on SuSE7.1 Linux, and 
> I'm glad it's running now. There still is a problem with the seminar package, 
> but I can get around that for the time being.
> 
> The problem of this posting is that when I have a document with figures, 
> looking good on-screen, the printed output of the figures is stretched 
> horizontally and won't fit on A4 anymore. Yet, the dvi-file after LaTeXing 
> the document produces a decent paper copy.

Screen resolutions are typically 75-100dpi (dots per inch).
Printer resolutions are typically 600 dpi.
Designing a page that looks perfect for both is an impossible problem,
especially with the limitations of the HTML language.

So LaTeX2HTML doesn't try to layout a good page for printing,
only for screen viewing. Besides, you already have a good printable
version with the .dvi from LaTeX, so you can always make that available
via a hyperlink to a .ps or PDF version.
See for example, some of my course materials, at:

http://www.maths.mq.edu.au/texdev/MATHS/MATH237/A1-2K1/Questions/Questions.html

and related pages.


Regarding looking good on-screen, have you noticed that LaTeX2HTML
does not force font sizes or font faces (nor even a background color)
by default. Thus your reader can set his/her own size and color-scheme,
as well as choosing the window size.
(If you wish to force these design aspects then you'll need to learn
how to associate CSS stylesheets to your pages, and do some work in 
designing something suitable for your HTML pages.)

Also, images generated by LaTeX2HTML are necessarily bitmaps; typically 
containing letter-shapes (e.g. as in math expressions). To be clear
at 75dpi, it is necessary to create a larger image that what LaTeX would
do for the paper version. Typically the scaling is by a factor of 1.4 or 
greater.

There are 2 variables that control this:
  $FIGURE_SCALE_FACTOR   and  $MATH_SCALE_FACTOR .
(Both can be set within a .latex2html-init file, if desired.)

When printed, this can indeed make the images seem too large.
That's why I recommend that HTML pages should be printed at 80%
or even smaller. (If that makes the text too small, then use browser
menu-items to increase the character size before printing.)
 

Of course, if you want the onscreen version to print identically to
the .dvi version, then you should use pdfTeX to create PDF files,
and require your readers to have Acrobat Reader installed.

It is quite common practice to create academic/technical document
this way, but to offer readers a choice of HTML or PDF, as on my
example page above.


> 
> Would appreciate your help.

It is impossible to satisfy all user requirements simultaneously.
HTML is for screen viewing; other formats are better for printing.
So LaTeX2HTML, by default, concentrates on making the screen-view
look good. (However, it is infinitely customisable, with minimal
programming skills.)



Hope this helps,

	Ross Moore


 
> Hans van Walen
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