[OS X TeX] OT: Pages from iWork

[Maarten Sneep]

On 25 feb 2005, at 10:12, Bruno Voisin wrote:

> Finally this application only calls more for an external equation 
> editor less graphics-based than the current Equation Service or LaTeX 
> Equation Editor: for them, the TeX code for an equation is lost when 
> the equation is pasted inside the WYSIWYG application, and the notion 
> of a baseline of the equation isn't preserved, preventing proper 
> alignment of the equation with the surrounding text.

If someone figures out how to tell Pages, or any other application how 
to handle a figure with an offset baseline, I'll happily investigate 
this.

> This is all the more unfortunate since the existence of the 
> OpenOffice.org macro OOoLaTeX 
> <http://www.fyma.ucl.ac.be/wiki/~piroux/OOo+macro> seems to indicate 
> such things are indeed possible (not that I have the faintest idea of 
> how).

I've had a look, and it is ugly, well somewhat. It requires specific 
support from a plug-in in the application. OOoLaTeX typesets the 
equation to dvi, runs it through dvips (which apparently includes the 
offset baseline) and uses convert to turn the equation into a png file 
(no good pdf support apparently in OOo). The baseline offset is taken 
from the ps-file with a simple grep, and written to a separate file. 
These two files (png and the baseline offset) are then used in the 
plug-in to position the equation correctly. It is application specific, 
and I don't think it is worth following this example at the moment, 
unless I (or someone else) figures out a way to include this offset 
into the pdf.

> With OOoLaTeX, the equations are imported as PNG pictures; with pdfTeX 
> it should be possible to do even better, by creating PDF pictures.

You'd loose the offset, I think. the route through dvips seems to have 
some advantages.

> (This is no criticism of the existing editors, I wouldn't be able to 
> do any of the work that has already been done. It's rather suggestions 
> for possible improvement. I remember Maarten mentioned working along 
> similar lines.)

It has been a while, and a command-line version (without baseline 
offset) is working, it even includes a MathML version of the equation.

Maarten

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