[reportlab-users] ReportLab vs LaTex

[Andy Robinson]

> I really think ReportLab could reuse the good from LaTeX at the basic 

> typographical level.  It is extremely unusual, so for that I know, that 

> ReportLab users really place each character themselves (they could 

> manage inter-character or inter-word spacing, but the font still usually 

> drives the width of each character).  ReportLab would not be any less 

> useful if it was knowing more about ligatures and kerning.  Word 

> segmentation issues are surely difficult, tricky, and language 

> dependent, yet there is a good amount of knowledge about such things in 

> the free software world.





> 

> Of course, someone somewhere has to volunteer doing such things, and it 

> would be totally unrealistic that I propose myself, I just do not have 

> enough free time.  My only point here is that it is not out of the realm 

> of ReportLab, so far that I understand it, trying to recycle some 

> quality ideas from TeX for the basic usage of fonts.  ReportLab would 

> not be "out of his place" by doing so.

> 

I agree, it would be great if we had some of these capabilities, and
I would love to spend a few months on it one day.

But there are difficulties; keeping it fast would need a lot of C code,
and some of the information you need is not available in most font 
files.  We had an early contribution which did a Knuth-like 
line-breaking algorithm and it took forever, despite only handling one 
font face and size.  More practically, we have never had any sign from a 
customer that they are willing to pay for this kind of work.

In short, it needs a dedicated and smart volunteer who knows LaTeX.

- Andy