Re: Is there a lout package repository?

[Martin Michel]

Hi Johann-Tobias,

good idea, I was also looking for a Latex alternative some time ago and stumbled
over Lout. Lout is not dead, there is just no active development going on. But 
the
original design of Lout was good enough that I use it still for creating
documents. The best documentation is the User Manual by Jeff Kingston, Louts
creator. It covers most cases for productive use (including math formulae)

Concerning special symbols, the only idea I have is to use ttf or otf fonts. I
have implemented a more-or-less hassle free way to use any of those fonts, see 
https://github.com/smartmic/addfonts

By the way, the txt2tags (https://github.com/txt2tags/txt2tags) has an easy 
markup
syntax and can convert to Lout. This way you do not have to dive deep into the
Lout language but can use a straightforward markup language. Unfortunately it is
not Markdown, I am planning to develop a module for pandoc which covers also 
Lout
(probably via its Lua API).

To finalize: Yes, I recommend to give Lout a try. The footprint on your system
will be a fraction of the Latex and still, you get high quality Postscript/PDF
documents.

I would be excited if some open-source enthusiasts or the original developers
would reactivate and keep the project live.

-Martin


On Sat, Oct 10, 2015 at 10:16:56AM +0200, Joh-Tob Schäg wrote:
> Hi lout-users,
> 
> i used Latex in the past and now want to try something new.
> In Latex there are packages, which provide syntax and symbols for chemistry, 
> cryptography and so on.
> Are there such packages in lout?
> Are there package distributions or reprositoires like CTAN?
> 
> And last but not least can you recommend any howtos/texts/documentation when 
> it comes to writing your own code?
> 
> Johann-Tobias