#speedata — Public Fediverse posts

6250 page enumerated with #Adobe #Indesign, variable data, 2 days to unfreeze the GUI, 800MB for a single file, impossible to work even locally, we gave up! 👎

6250 page enumerated with #Speedata #Publisher, no need for variable data, 5' to prepare the layout, 580KB of files, 15' to export the file... 🏆

@sabrinaweb71 & @01micko

Converting image in base64 will be very inefficient... Using text for images perhaps it is not such a brilliant idea…

However, I had another intuition, it could be possible to replicate the same behavior of the raw image files, where the changes are stored into an XML file, in that case it will change only the XML while the picture would be untouched.

Now, cause #Gimp supports non-destructive editing it might be possible for instance...

Dear @GIMP team and @CmykStudent it is not unreasonable, I guess, to consider the idea of a format, that could be called GMF as in "GIMP or GEGL Meta File", where you have a file saved in a compressed format, for instance jpg2000 cause support transparency and can be wrapped into a PDF, and have the GMF file storing all the changes, when you open this GMF file it consolidates everything into Gimp. The key would be in having a good batch processor to flatten these meta files on the fly for software like #Scribus or #Speedata #Publisher.

In terms of version control software you would uploaded or downloaded those images (already compressed) just once, and then only dealing with the XML GMF files. Perhaps won't be the most savvy energy format but it will spare a lot of time and bandwith... 🤔

New stable release 5.2 of the speedata Publisher!

The XML parser has been completely rewritten, XPath got new functions, and HTML/CSS support keeps improving.
Faster, cleaner, more reliable – and already preparing for a Rust-powered future 🦀

Read more: https://news.speedata.de/2025/10/14/version-5_2_released/

#speedata #publishing #xml #rust #golang #opensource #typesetting

@bins That exact layout is going to be a nightmare in any engine. #speedata will probably come closest, but #texlatex is going to be *hard*, and neither #typst nor #sile will handle both balanced columns and floating images across columns at the same time.

The correlations between #typesetting engines to their #terminal text editors are irrefutable:

* #TeXLaTeX is #emacs.
* #SILE is #neovim.
* #Typst is #helix.
* #WeasyPrint is #nano.
* #Speedata is #microeditor

Now back to your regularly scheduled indentation.

@rk the other two options would be #SILE and #typst.

Other follow-ups groupings would also be mashups like #speedata / prince / etc. and browser tech options like #weasyprint / #pagedjs / etc.

See also https://polytype.dev for some comparisons I was/am working on.

@nobodyinperson Any thoughts to suggest for spinning up #speedata, or #patoline in a Nix shell? I think I have almost everything else of note these days running, but Speedata has a messy build with no notion of an installation (which explains why it has never been packaged for any distro) and Patoline only builds against a legacy OCAML toolchain. Since it isn't a very active player in the #typesetter space I can write off the later for now but @speedata Publisher probably deserves a fair shake.

I've recently launched an idea at https://polytype.dev — a sort of Rosetta Stone for #typesetting engines.

The goal is to build up a sample gallery that showcases both differences and similarities between the input and output of #SILE, #TeXLaTeX, #Typst, #speedata, #weasyprint, #pagedjs, #groff, #satysfi, #patoline, and potentially others.

The source code is at https://github.com/alerque/polytype and contributions are very welcome! The UI in particular could use the touch of a front-end developer!

XTS version 0.0.11 is released. Download as always at https://github.com/speedata/xts/releases

In preparation for automatic testing XTS can now create reproducible PDFs (identical checksum on each run). This makes it easier to compare a PDF file against a reference PDF.
Also add the support for muliple runs.

A new example is online at https://github.com/speedata/xts-examples/tree/main/introduction/planets which show how to create a table of contents.
#xts #speedata

XTS news: This has been a pretty busy week. Here are the news:

* XTS version 0.0.2 is released (https://github.com/speedata/xts/releases/tag/v0.0.2)
* There is the beginning of a manual at https://doc.speedata.de/xts/
* The example repo is at https://github.com/speedata/xts-examples
* XTS is now BSD licensed!

What is #XTS? The XML typesetting system is a PDF database publishing software to create product catalogs and other high demand output. #speedata #boxesandglue

(4) Modern solutions include (besides Teχ): #SILE, #speedata publisher and #typst.
(5) I am working on my own project #typho.

Here are the slides: https://www.typho.org/assets/presentations/2023-02-07_pygraz_slides.pdf

More details follow tomorrow.

2/2

(4) Modern solutions include (besides Teχ): #SILE, #speedata publisher and #typst.
(5) I am working on my own project #typho.

Here are the slides: https://www.typho.org/assets/presentations/2023-02-07_pygraz_slides.pdf

More details follow tomorrow.

2/2

(4) Modern solutions include (besides Teχ): #SILE, #speedata publisher and #typst.
(5) I am working on my own project #typho.

Here are the slides: https://www.typho.org/assets/presentations/2023-02-07_pygraz_slides.pdf

More details follow tomorrow.

2/2

On Tuesday, I will give a talk about #DigitalTypesetting at the local #python community.

My idea is to create some first slides for digital typesetting to expand them over the course of the next months. I will also introduce various existing solutions for digital typesetting (#LaTeχ, #SILE, #speedata, #yex, #typst, …) and my own project #typho.

In case you are in #Graz, join us. I will share slides later here.
https://pygraz.org/meetups/sessions/163/

On Tuesday, I will give a talk about #DigitalTypesetting at the local #python community.

My idea is to create some first slides for digital typesetting to expand them over the course of the next months. I will also introduce various existing solutions for digital typesetting (#LaTeχ, #SILE, #speedata, #yex, #typst, …) and my own project #typho.

In case you are in #Graz, join us. I will share slides later here.
https://pygraz.org/meetups/sessions/163/

#Speedata #Publisher – a #professional database Publishing system

Project
https://github.com/speedata/publisher