GEOINFORMATICS RESEARCH PAPERS, publ. BS1001, doi:10.2205/2013BS009, 2013


Converting LaTeX to EPUB3: Bad idea or pragmatic solution

V. A. Nechitailenko

Abstract

The problem of converting LaTeX to HTML5 and EPUB3 looks as one of most important and promising in the area of electronic publishing in science. The problem of using LaTeX files for ebooks is actually the problem of converting LaTeX to XHTML. The last step – arranging the XHTML into EPUB3 archive – is rather obvious. Correct converting LaTeX to XHTML in general case is not possible, even theoretically, because LaTeX generically is not SGML-compatible. The partial solution can be found if we eliminate the used LaTeX style to fixed list of commands and redefine some of them to emulate XML-compatible structure. With these limitations creating not so comprehensive converting software becomes possible. Shortly, all necessary primary semantic elements should be included into LaTeX source file, while secondary ones should be defined in style file. This makes structure of conversion software more straightforward and easy to understand. The paper discusses some solutions realized by author. The pros and cons of this approach are discussed on the base of testing converter of such type. It is clear now that EPUB3, which is based on XML standard, looks as very promising standard to support learned and educational content..

Received 25 May 2013.


      Powered by MathJax


Citation: Nechitailenko V. A. (2013), Converting LaTeX to EPUB3: Bad idea or pragmatic solution, Geoinf. Res. Papers, BS1001, doi:10.2205/2013BS009.


Generated from LaTeX source by SemTeXML, v.1.2) software package.