Hello all,
Most of know the "Download as PDF" feature is not usable on Indic wikis with Collection Extension due to issues in PDF generation with complex scripts. While we hope this gets fixed, in the meantime, we can provide something that's more usable to users. Aamaachu, a Tamil Wikipedia reader and free software contributor suggested[1] instead of showing "Download as PDF" (which downloads an unusable PDF), the link could be "Download as ODT" and people who want to take content offline could atleast read them properly. (MS Office 2007 supports opening ODT files as well). I had filed a bug[2] for the same and all Tamil Wiki projects now show "Download as ODT" on the portlet. Please consider filing similar bugs for your Indic Wiki project making the experience more "usable". Of Course once complex script rendering in PDF is supported, we can always change / add one more option to list PDF.
Thank you.
[1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikita-l/2012-May/000107.html [2] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/37154
On 6 June 2012 14:17, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik.lak@gmail.com wrote:
software contributor suggested[1] instead of showing "Download as PDF" (which downloads an unusable PDF), the link could be "Download as ODT" and
Oh man. This, apart from solving a current problem with Indic languages and PDFs, is such an awesome way to drive adoption of OpenDocument Formats and Open/Libre Office in India.
Thank you.
Best,
Gautam ________ http://blog.prathambooks.org/p/social-media.html
On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 3:02 PM, Gautam John gautam@prathambooks.org wrote:
Oh man. This, apart from solving a current problem with Indic languages and PDFs, is such an awesome way to drive adoption of OpenDocument Formats and Open/Libre Office in India.
A question that would be relevant is whether any device accessing the Indic Wikipedia (desktop [own/shared], laptop, mobile) will have the adequate means to handle, display and render ODT formats.
On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 3:51 PM, sankarshan foss.mailinglists@gmail.comwrote:
On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 3:02 PM, Gautam John gautam@prathambooks.org wrote:
Oh man. This, apart from solving a current problem with Indic languages and PDFs, is such an awesome way to drive adoption of OpenDocument Formats and Open/Libre Office in India.
A question that would be relevant is whether any device accessing the Indic Wikipedia (desktop [own/shared], laptop, mobile) will have the adequate means to handle, display and render ODT formats.
Even though pdf file format is more widely used, same thing can be asked for a pdf file. If there is no application that can handle pdf file, it is of no use.
-Sudhanwa
-- sankarshan mukhopadhyay http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog https://twitter.com/#!/sankarshan
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Fantastic !! +100 :-) -Sudhanwa
On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 2:17 PM, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik.lak@gmail.comwrote:
Hello all,
Most of know the "Download as PDF" feature is not usable on Indic wikis with Collection Extension due to issues in PDF generation with complex scripts. While we hope this gets fixed, in the meantime, we can provide something that's more usable to users. Aamaachu, a Tamil Wikipedia reader and free software contributor suggested[1] instead of showing "Download as PDF" (which downloads an unusable PDF), the link could be "Download as ODT" and people who want to take content offline could atleast read them properly. (MS Office 2007 supports opening ODT files as well). I had filed a bug[2] for the same and all Tamil Wiki projects now show "Download as ODT" on the portlet. Please consider filing similar bugs for your Indic Wiki project making the experience more "usable". Of Course once complex script rendering in PDF is supported, we can always change / add one more option to list PDF.
Thank you.
[1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikita-l/2012-May/000107.html [2] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/37154
-- Regards Srikanth.L
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On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 2:17 PM, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik.lak@gmail.com wrote:
Most of know the "Download as PDF" feature is not usable on Indic wikis with Collection Extension due to issues in PDF generation with complex scripts.
Can you point out the issues as well please ?
On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 3:49 PM, sankarshan foss.mailinglists@gmail.comwrote:
On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 2:17 PM, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik.lak@gmail.com wrote:
Most of know the "Download as PDF" feature is not usable on Indic wikis
with
Collection Extension due to issues in PDF generation with complex
scripts.
Can you point out the issues as well please ?
The bug[1] which requires pypdflib[2] (or similar pdf generation library which Collection extension could use) to be stable / working for Indic languages which has complex scripts.
A question that would be relevant is whether any device accessing the
Indic Wikipedia (desktop [own/shared], laptop, mobile) will have the adequate means to handle, display and render ODT formats.
You got a valid point there. Having a PDF option by which one can open but not use it provides same value as having an ODT which one cannot open. Generated PDF has glyphs rendered in parts and/or wrong order, one cannot use them. On the other hand, even if someone does not have capability to view ODT(let's say people with MS-Office 2000), some people will try to atleast google ODT, know about ODT,LibreOffice or programs which can open ODT and the interested ones will download and use it.
On a tangential note, it will be interesting to know the click stats of links on Collection extension to see how many people use "Download as" links.
[1] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/28206 [2] https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/pypdflib
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