Text FormattingGetting infinite page length for on-screen viewing

Information and discussion about LaTeX's general text formatting features (e.g. bold, italic, enumerations, ...)
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drowsy
Posts: 44
Joined: Tue Dec 23, 2008 6:00 am

Getting infinite page length for on-screen viewing

Post by drowsy »

Hi,

is it possible to prepare a document for on-screen viewing with
infinite page length? Clearly you do not need the concept
of "pages" if you are not going to print the document. Text width
is all that matters.

It will even look better since TeX will not have any issues with text not filling pages nicely.

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josephwright
Site Moderator
Posts: 814
Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2008 2:19 pm

Re: infinite page length?!

Post by josephwright »

No. TeX has a maximum page length based on the maximum dimensions it will handle. It is long (several feet, I think), but finite.
Joseph Wright
phi
Posts: 577
Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2008 8:10 pm

Re: infinite page length?!

Post by phi »

Printing is the primary intent of TeX. If you want an on-screen document, use HTML.
drowsy
Posts: 44
Joined: Tue Dec 23, 2008 6:00 am

Getting infinite page length for on-screen viewing

Post by drowsy »

I disagree. TeX was initially designed to be for printing,
look at it now. Hyperlinks, embedded movies, javascript, buttons and fillable forms.

Too bad linux pdf viewers do not suppport javascript yet :(
josephwright
Site Moderator
Posts: 814
Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2008 2:19 pm

Re: infinite page length?!

Post by josephwright »

Yes, you can do many on-line things with TeX. However, it is still best applied to items which have some kind of page-like structure. So on-line presentations, etc., work well but not long structureless documents.
Joseph Wright
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