[Foundation-l] Wikipedia's ebook and PDF creation feature doesn't support Chinese and Japanese

[Ziyuan Yao]

Actually, the MediaWiki extension "Collection" developed by PediaPress
is based on a PDF generation library "ReportLab", which doesn't
support Chinese very well (for example, so far, a Chinese line in a
generated PDF doesn't take up the full width of a page; there is still
much space unused to the right of every Chinese line). I suggested
them to use a more Unicode-friendly PDF library such as TCPDF, but
they said (in https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33430 and
email correspondence with me) they had already done much work with
ReportLab and therefore switching to a new PDF library was not an
option.

I think the ideal solution is to rewrite MediaWiki's PDF generation
feature using a good PDF library such as TCPDF. Is there any other
company than PediaPress that the Wikimedia Foundation can collaborate
with to rewrite MediaWiki's PDF generation feature?

On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 9:35 AM, Ziyuan Yao <yaoziyuan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yesterday I started two discussion threads for this issue, one one the
> Wikizh-l mailing list, the other on the zh.wikipedia Google Group
> (both are official discussion lists for the Chinese Wikipedia):
>
> Wikizh-l thread: (in Chinese)
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikizh-l/2012-March/000733.html
>
> zh.wikipedia thread (in Chinese):
> https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fromgroups#!topic/zh_wikipedia/5BD523P6d9M
>
> The two threads are still early in discussion, but commenters so far
> support adopting the latest MediaWiki version, but they also pointed
> out a bug that needs to be resolved (Chinese text should be converted
> to either all-simplified or all-traditional before PDF creation):
>
> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34919
>
> Previously there was another bug (Chinese lines don't wrap
> automatically) and it was resolved:
>
> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33430
>
> From this resolved bug report you can find the relevant developers of
> MediaWiki's PDF creation feature (PediaPress).
>
> On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 6:58 AM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Well, I think Shizhao is subscribed to this list :-)  but I cc: him
>> just in case.
>> This sounds like a reasonable request.  Can one of the developers
>> involved comment on the situation?
>>
>> Ziyuan: can you post a link to the discussion on the chinese wikipedia
>> about whether to upgrade?
>>
>> SJ
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 2:24 PM, Yao Ziyuan <yaoziyuan at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 3:21 AM, Pharos <pharosofalexandria at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Side question:
>>>>
>>>> Does Chinese Wikipedia indeed have an elected or consensus "leader" or
>>>> some sort?
>>>
>>> Dunno, but he seems to be the community organizer.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Richard
>>>> (User:Pharos)
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 1:59 PM, Yao Ziyuan <yaoziyuan at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Hi All,
>>>>>
>>>>> I think you guys can all see how useful it would be if the Chinese
>>>>> Wikipedia also has the ebook/PDF creation feature as seen on other
>>>>> language Wikipedias. Some countries don't always let their people
>>>>> visit Wikipedia, so ebooks can be an alternative.
>>>>>
>>>>> We have tried to solve this bug that prevents the Chinese/Japanese
>>>>> Wikipedias from having this feature:
>>>>> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33430
>>>>>
>>>>> The relevant developers (PediaPress) have solved the bug to some
>>>>> extent, but Shi Zhao, leader of the Chinese Wikipedia, still doesn't
>>>>> think the resulting Chinese PDF files are good enough, so the Chinese
>>>>> Wikipedia has not yet upgraded to the latest MediaWiki software to get
>>>>> this feature.
>>>>>
>>>>> My two suggestions:
>>>>> (1) Persuade Shi Zhao to adopt the latest MediaWiki software, which
>>>>> can generate ebook/PDFs for the Chinese Wikipedia, although the page
>>>>> layout is not perfect.
>>>>> (2) Or find another organization than PediaPress to provide this
>>>>> feature, because PediaPress refuses to adopt a more Unicode-friendly
>>>>> PDF code library that provides better Chinese PDF rendering.
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>> Ziyuan Yao
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> foundation-l mailing list
>>>>> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Samuel Klein          identi.ca:sj           w:user:sj          +1 617 529 4266
>>
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