Text Formatting ⇒ Converting HTML to images, further use of PHP

[sambessey]

Hi,

I am looking to use latex to simply convert html text to an image... the main reason being I want users to be able to type text in a box, select a custom TTF font, (That they will not have on their system), and then preview the text in that font.

They also need to be able to do colour manipulation, bold, italic, etc...

Firstly:

Is Latex the right tool for the job?

Secondly:

My web host installed Latex and told me to call it via php using the exec command. I cannot find any idiot's guides on getting started on using latex via PHP. Can anyone here help at all? i.e. even just to test it all works?

Thanks

Sam

[localghost]

[...] Is Latex the right tool for the job? [...]

No. But the usual output formats should be convertible with tools like ImageMagick.

[...] My web host installed Latex and told me to call it via php using the exec command. I cannot find any idiot's guides on getting started on using latex via PHP. Can anyone here help at all? i.e. even just to test it all works? [...]

For this purpose there exist some ready-made scripts with latexrender.


Best regards and welcome to the board
Thorsten¹

[sambessey]

Thanks for your feedback.

I realise I will need to convert to some kind of image in ImageMagick (No problem), but I want to ensure I can do everything I want in terms of text formatting/ output out-of-the-box.

I will follow up on your advice.

Thanks

Sam