Re: st: re: TeX template for PDF help files

[Phil Schumm <pschumm@uchicago.edu>]

On Nov 22, 2009, at 11:29 AM, Airey, David C wrote:
> One possibility for those hating the SMCL format (isn't it just like  
> writing manually in any other markup?)


We could probably have a healthy debate on whether SMCL is more or  
less difficult to learn (and to use) than other markup languages.   
Personally, I do think some markup languages are easier than others,  
but I'll admit that such preferences have a lot of subjectivity to  
them.  Regardless, however, it's probably the case that few people use  
SMCL to do things other than writing Stata help files.  Thus, there  
would be an obvious advantage to being able to use a markup language  
that one already uses for other purposes.


> What does R do these days? They dynamically create HTML help files  
> and also have PDF files.


Those are written in Rd format, which is very similar to LaTeX.  This  
would be easy for those of us who already use LaTeX, but decidedly not  
for those who don't.  A markup language like reStructuredText (which I  
mentioned in a previous post) has a learning curve that is less steep  
than that for LaTeX (or so I would argue).


-- Phil


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