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<h1>Writing Documents: Markdown? LaTeX? WINWORD.EXE? Nope, just HTML</h1>
<p>
<img src="https://nextcloud.53hor.net/index.php/s/XaZRfgK3G7ZzWbs/preview" />
</p>
<p class="description">
I've been without MS Word for quite a few years since I switched away from
Windows and honestly I haven't needed it. I took notes and wrote documents in
Markdown for a while. That was alright because the syntax is easy and any text
editor can read a Markdown file. Sometimes I need shareable formatting, so
recently I started using HTML for all documents I intend to share, upload, or
print.
</p>
<p>
The year is 2021 and I write all my formatted documents in HTML. It sounds
needless but if you think about it it makes a lot of sense. HTML after all was
designed to be the streaming document of choice when the web was introduced to
the world. So it's tailor-made for shareable, digital documents.
<a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/html52/"
>Over the years the specification has gotten larger</a
>, and most of the syntax required by a typical user is present.
</p>
<p>
But why bother? What are the "benefits"? Well, HTML is ubiquitous. And by that
I mean literally <em>everyone</em> can read an HTML document because literally
everyone has a web browser installed. Friends don't have Word? Use Google
Docs? Use Apple Pages? Forget it. I bet you all of those folks have a web
browser that was made after 1999. That means they can all read your document,
either by visiting it on your site or receiving it in an email.
</p>
<p>
What's easier than reading HTML is writing it. Anyone with a text editor can
do it. Heck, even those folks with Word installed can save their documents as
[reasonable] HTML. And the tags aren't that hard to learn. I don't think that
Markdown is an easier syntax to learn and understand. HTML's tags are only
slightly more verbose and the structure is a pro, not a con. It's certainly
easier than writing a document in LaTeX. I would even argue in some ways it's
easier than working with a WYSIWYG editor. At least the formatting you're
looking for isn't getting shuffled from menu to sub-menu.
</p>
<p>
Sometimes folks want a PDF instead. Okay, fine. For whatever reason PDFs are
the reigning document of the land. That doesn't mean you need Adobe Acrobat or
some custom setup involving
<code>wkhtmltopdf</code>. Or even worse, some strange LaTeX middleware via
<code>pandoc</code>. You don't need any of that! The best PDF reader in the
world, MuPDF, also comes with <code>mutool</code>.
<code>mutool convert [options] file [pages]</code> will convert a variety of
formats to or from a PDF. And the results look terrific going from an HTML to
a PDF. If you want, you can customize the results by writing CSS into
<code>@media print</code> queries. Automate the creation with a script when
you safe the underlying document. Sky's the limit!
</p>
<p>
But what about presentations or slideshows? Surely, the "minimal" solution is
to use something like Suckless' <code>sent</code> right? Well, you can also do
slideshows in HTML! Just a little CSS and some <code>section</code> and
<code>a</code> tags and you've got a click-able, full-browser slideshow with
images, links, titles, icons, flowcharts, embedded videos, and a printable
slide deck. And the best part is that you can instantly share online by
dropping it into a public web root. You don't have to use Google Slides or
some other third-party slide creator online that none of your friends use.
Heck, Suckless <code>sent</code> is just that: yet another slideshow tool that
does one thing and nobody but you has it installed. Your HTML slides are
<em>just as plain text</em> as a <code>sent</code> deck.
</p>
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