[Tex/LaTex] Responsive design with LaTeX

paper-sizepdf

Is there any concept similar to responsive design, as in responsive web design, in TeX/LaTeX? That is, is it possible to include hints or directives that optimize layouts for different screens? PDFs are not suited to display well on small screens such as mobile phones and eBook readers. But with LaTeX is it as simple and changing the size of the document and exporting PDFs at different sizes for different devices? What if you want the final document to be resizable? Can you indicate at which point margins, font-sizes, and figures should change?

Best Answer

There is a new output format under development called HINT that would support reflowing of type-set TeX output, see these articles for more information:

https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb39-3/tb123ruckert-hint.pdf

https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb40-2/tb125ruckert-hint.pdf

Of course, using a new file format comes with all sorts of problems, like viewer support on all sorts of devices, so this is probably not a usable solution for now.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Preparing PDF files for ebook readers, etc.

PhilTeX has a nice article about it: Reading PDFs on portables. It answers some of your TeXnical questions, but I'm afraid it is hard to give advice on things like aspect ratios and font sizes. The medium you're targetting is very diverse and something that works for a laptop might not work on a Kindle.

Update: I just stumbled across a talk on typesetting for the iPad given at TUG2010. It could be interesting, he gives a demo too.

[Tex/LaTex] LaTeX – how to force PDF page height/width

The correct parameters to set are \pdfpageheight and \pdfpagewidth:

\pdfpageheight=11in
\pdfpagewidth=8.5in

However, this won't work in the "latex+dvips+ps2pdf" cycle. A code for both cases is

\usepackage{ifpdf}
\ifpdf
  \pdfpageheight=11in
  \pdfpagewidth=8.5in
\else
  \special{papersize=11in,8.5in}
\fi

The geometry way is better:

\usepackage[pass,letterpaper]{geometry}

or, if one wants a different paper size, (I'll use Letter paper sizes as example)

\usepackage[pass,paperwidth=8.5in,paperheight=11in]{geometry}

With the pass option, geometry won't change the class parameters for pagination, as it would do without it.

Note for BakomaTeX

As far as I know, BakomaTeX doesn't use pdflatex, so the

\usepackage[pass,letterpaper]{geometry}

should be the one to follow.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Preparing PDF files for ebook readers, etc.

[Tex/LaTex] LaTeX – how to force PDF page height/width

Note for BakomaTeX

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