@DavidCarlisle Orjner, tbfunjxf (nf cre zl ynfg anzr) unir irel tbbq rlrf ...

@StefanKottwitz david@learnlatex:~$ asy --help asy: error while loading shared libraries: libGLX.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

@DavidCarlisle oh no

@mickep @StefanKottwitz asked (on a tram in Bonn) for asymptote at texlive.net so davidcarlisle.github.io/latexcgi/test-asy but it didn't quite do what I expected. I assume few sudo apt install ....

@DavidCarlisle Indeed!

@Skillmon -- Did you have anything to do with this -- nbcnews.com/news/us-news/… ?

@barbarabeeton This we will do! Either at TUG24 or some other occasion!

@samcarter -- I accept your offer!

@barbarabeeton Eh! Another proof of Sir Terry Pratchett's quote. No problem with Burmese Pythons "removal", but cute little rabbits... 😝😝😝

/joking and ducking

@barbarabeeton Probably it is a wild boar that identifies as a lioness.

@DavidCarlisle I installed it, the test document now shows "failed to create directory /.asy"

@StefanKottwitz ah progress:-)

@StefanKottwitz thanks if i run that example on the server i get tex.stackexchange.com/questions/666218/… probably gs too old...

@StefanKottwitz asy works if I do export PATH=/usr/local/texlive/2021/bin/x86_64-linux/:$PATH

@DavidCarlisle ooh, 2021

@StefanKottwitz i guess installing gs10 would be better?

@DavidCarlisle You should have asked Jim.

@DavidCarlisle You should get a real OS.

@egreg debian linux in this case

Hi folks. I was just trying to use pandoc for a text to PDF conversion. It appears to use LaTeX internally for this (for some reason) and errored out on this:

I suppose it's unlikely anyone here could suggest a quick fix for this, but I thought I would ask.

@FaheemMitha Haven't tried but does --pdf-engine=lualatex (or luatex or whatever) work?

@mickep Yes, I was just trying that. It gives a different error.

Error producing PDF.
! Text line contains an invalid character.
l.52 ^^[

The odd part is that the text file only contains 39 lines.

@FaheemMitha OK, sorry, no clue.

@mickep Thanks for the suggestion. Found that one on SO. Tried to read the man page, but gave up before noticing the --pdf-engine option.

@FaheemMitha Oops, an escape char? Maybe the text file is trying some ansi trick like color or bold or... Try (on a Linux machine) cupsfilter file.txt > file.pdf maybe?

@FaheemMitha declare it and then look where it is:

\documentclass{article}
\DeclareUnicodeCharacter{001B}{HERE!!!!}
\begin{document}
^^1b
\end{document}

@Rmano Turns out the problem character was on the first line. I edited it out, and now it works. But it converts poorly. I'd do better sticking it inside verbatim.

@FaheemMitha why have you got an escape character?

@UlrikeFischer What should I put in the place of HERE!!!!?

@DavidCarlisle No idea. A bank sent me the text file.

@DavidCarlisle To escape from pandoc?

@Rmano Trying cupsfilter now.

@FaheemMitha it's not really text , delete the control characters

@DavidCarlisle Yes, I did that.

@FaheemMitha then the error would be gone

@DavidCarlisle It is. But the result does not look great.

It has a table, which is kind of messed up.

@Rmano Hmm. cupsfilter is in /usr/sbin.

@FaheemMitha cupsfilter is what will be used if you send the .txt file to a printer that wants PDF...

But yes, it may not work, it depends a lot on the printer(s) you have configured

@Rmano OK, I ran it as /usr/sbin/cupsfilter and it worked. A decent, though not stellar result. But certainly better than the LaTeX one.

@Rmano It sends to what looks like standard output by default.

@FaheemMitha yes, it's a filter --- normally it's in the CUPS printing pipeline. (It's a hack, but sometimes a nice hack).

@Rmano I think a SO answer also suggested it. I'll take a second look. Thank you for the suggestion.

This one has a whole bunch of suggestions. unix.stackexchange.com/questions/17406/…

And I read this one once, because I have a comment on one of the answers.

@barbarabeeton By the way, wild boars are one of my favorite animals because they look so cute when they are young:

@StefanKottwitz 2021 but works..... davidcarlisle.github.io/latexcgi/test-asy

@SeanAllred welcome back:-)

@DavidCarlisle great! thank you, I will play with this!

@StefanKottwitz did you install libglx by hand or was I missing a magic apt incantation?

@FaheemMitha I tried github.com/baruchel/txt2pdf, it seems to work nicely.

@Rmano That command doesn't seem to be in Debian.

@UlrichDiez we have a lot of them around my home (it's becoming a problem in some places). Mothers with piglets can be very dangerous

Ah, Python.

@DavidCarlisle Hi! Sitting in a coffee shop waiting for CI pipelines to run – figured I'd poke my head in :-)

Forcing nameless VMs to install emacs over and over and over again ;-)

@FaheemMitha I just downloaded the python script and it works...

@SeanAllred @PauloCereda will be proud of you

@Rmano Sure. I just tend to stick to what is in Debian, as a matter of policy.

@FaheemMitha I know, I live dangerously...

@DavidCarlisle Has he seen The Light yet?

For the obvious reasons. High among them, that random stuff off the internet isn't great from a security POV. And also, that if it is in Debian, at least it will (probably) be available tomorrow.

@SeanAllred no, lost to the dark side

@DavidCarlisle Can't save 'em all, I suppose :-)

@UlrichDiez I (still) associate wild boar with Asterix.

@barbarabeeton interesting read! "cuteness-overload" sounds like a great concept for a short movie :)

@FaheemMitha It seems to be a thin layer around this: docs.reportlab.com/reportlab/userguide/ch1_intro, which I have installed already what some unknown reason ;-)

Ah... hplib (for the printer, again... boiling down to the same thing)

@Rmano Printer stuff? What are they using under the hood?

@FaheemMitha yes, to print text files on modern printers that only accepts PDF basically they must do the conversion somehow.

@Rmano Right. Just wondering what that method is. Ghostscript, perhaps?

@FaheemMitha probably for CUPS. But hplib is using that "ReportLab" library I linked above, it seems.

@DavidCarlisle oh no

@UlrichDiez -- They are cute in that video. But from the first picture, I wouldn't have guessed it was a wild boar -- the shape of the head doesn't look right. I'm familiar with feral pigs in the Georgia islands; they look more "piggish". The cryptic coloration of both the boar and the tapir babies is delightful.

@SeanAllred quack <3

@Rmano Huh. Debian has this ReporLlab library, so it must be free software.

@SeanAllred mr. rabbit suggested me to go to neovim. :)

@Rmano What is this hplib again?

@FaheemMitha Sorry, hplip developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing (with a final "p")

@PauloCereda quack quack :-)

@PauloCereda Neovim has definitely been making a lot of strides recently. Seems quite the boon to leave vimscript behind (if I understand correctly). Will never beat Magit, though ;-)

@barbarabeeton near my home: telemadrid.es/programas/madrid-directo/… (it's in Spanish, sorry...)

@SeanAllred Indeed. :) Vimscript was a bit of black magic, so a move towards a proper scripting language is good. :)

@PauloCereda emacs lisp

@DavidCarlisle boo

@Rmano So, does ReportLab have a method to convert text to PDF which does not involve downloading scripts off the internet?

@FaheemMitha No idea, but probably yes. Although the way to find it would probably be to study the script txt2pdf.py, which indeed works (it's just 400 lines and most of it is option management).

@Rmano OK.

@Rmano -- Thanks. I was able to muddle through. I noticed a linguistic relation to "javelina", the peccary native to the American Southwest. The general shape of the javelina's head is what I was expecting when I saw the first picture of the wild boar babies, but they're rather dissimilar.

@barbarabeeton Ah, yes --- baby wild boars are called "jabatos" here, "jabatillos" as a diminutive. (And "b" and "v" in Spanish are pronounced the same)

@DavidCarlisle What I said. 😁

@UlrikeFischer Oh, sorry. I just realised I misread your comment.

Or perhaps more accurately, didn't read it properly at all. Indeed, that's a good strategy to keep in mind if one cannot track down a character.

@FaheemMitha I too, but unlike Obelix I don't like to eat them. ;-) To be honest, I have never been a big fan of pork. But omelet with mushrooms, parsley, lettuce and apple juice is one of my favorite dishes ;-) In the Asterix comics they put parsley in their ears from time to time, so they don't have to hear the bard sing...

@Rmano In our area they are a problem for farmers because they eat in the fields. In fact, it is better to get out of the way of a sow leading freshlings. ;-)

@barbarabeeton I am waiting for them to be available as TikZlings ;-)

@UlrichDiez I hear that the wild boar had been extinct in Europe for a while, but a re-introduction was being made.

Or maybe I was thinking of England.

@UlrichDiez -- Oh, they would be an attractive addition. @samcarter -- are you listening?

Yes, I think England.

theguardian.com/environment/2012/mar/04/…

@AlanMunn -- Just reviewing a question about pluralizing acronyms. I have no problem with adding "s" to the end ... usually. (TLAs makes perfectly good sense.) But if the acronym (or initialization) ends with "S", why not add "es", for example. "OSes"?

@FaheemMitha According to my information wild boars were pushed back to smaller areas in some parts of Europe and Russia, from where they spread again. Here in my home region they were never exterminated - wild boar was always traditional game for both for driven hunting and hidden hunting

@UlrichDiez I see. But they were driven to extinction in England, apparently. I don't know about the whole UK.

> Wild boar became extinct in the UK in the 17th century.

From that Guardian article.

I wonder if they breed true.

@barbarabeeton Yes, I agree. Orthographically it looks very odd to have two adjacent 's'es :) In the OS case, it's definitely correct since we use OS as an initialism and wouldn't be inclined to spell it out.