Making pdf of help files

[Magnate]

Okay so I've been putting the online docs into their own pdf and slowly adding bits into the help and cross-referencing/indexing as I go. The original link is still good to reach the files though(I have rearranged a little and the readme's are NOT up to date but I think it is pretty intuitive).
Either way there isn't much more done on the help but the manual is about half done (ignoring indexing/crossrefing obviously).

I'm not entirely sure what wants to be added all the time so any hints or suggestions are appreciated.

Ok, this is from takkaria on IRC:

16:07 < takkaria> magnate: I guess I'd like to see one user guide which is good for everyone and then game-generated spoilers

... which means that the spoily bits of the online manual (the long lists of items, ego types, etc.) should be left out of the PDF. This will also make it easier to keep it up to date, as those lists would go out of date really easily.

I'll have a look at the weekend and leave some detailed comments. Keep up the good work!

[qwerty]

Ok, so all the online manual apart from the appendicies is now up and running, I just need to work out how, what and where to try and merge everything across.

As before the link on the first page is still good.

[Magnate]

Ok, so all the online manual apart from the appendicies is now up and running, I just need to work out how, what and where to try and merge everything across.

As before the link on the first page is still good.

What do you mean by "merge everything across"?

[qwerty]

What do you mean by "merge everything across"?

Well I was under the impression that the online files were more up-to date than the txt files, so the info from online needed to be added into the main help. Please correct me if this is wrong or if I have misinterpreted.

[Magnate]

Well I was under the impression that the online files were more up-to date than the txt files, so the info from online needed to be added into the main help. Please correct me if this is wrong or if I have misinterpreted.

Hmmm. Fizzix updated the help files quite significantly for 3.2.0 (we were finally able to remove the "documentation is out-of-date" warning from the splash screen). James Doyle did a ton of work on the online manual, but I think he stopped a while ago.

I'm going to d/l your files now so I'll reply later about whether there's a lot of stuff that ought to be updated. I think takkaria wants to rip out (most of) the in-game help text anyway, so that people will use the new PDF or HTML help.

Did you go LaTeX in the end? If not, what's the master format? (i.e. the one from which the others are derived)

EDIT: I see you did use tex. Excellent.

EDIT2: I am worried now. Your PDF starts with "New features in 3.0.8", but 308.txt was removed in 3.2.0 and replaced by 320.txt. So I am worried that you have been using an old version. This would explain why you feel that the in-game help is out of date. I can't see a customise.tex in your repository (customise.txt was a new help file for 3.2.0), so I suspect you have used files from an older version (3.1.2 or earlier).

That said, it's an excellent piece of work - it's a really nice-looking PDF. If you can bring it up-to-date with the txt files in the latest nightly, that would be excellent. (Don't worry about doing 320.txt, because that will be replaced by 330.txt).

[qwerty]

Did you go LaTeX in the end? If not, what's the master format? (i.e. the one from which the others are derived)

The master format is LaTeX, pdfs are included in the repo so there is no need to rebuild them unless you want to.

[Magnate]

The master format is LaTeX, pdfs are included in the repo so there is no need to rebuild them unless you want to.

Pls see my EDIT2 above. Your work looks great but I think you have used the wrong version of the text files.

[qwerty]

Pls see my EDIT2 above. Your work looks great but I think you have used the wrong version of the text files.

Sure, sorry about that, can't remeber where I got the files in the first place tbh. Should the latest git repo be up to date?

[Magnate]

Sure, sorry about that, can't remeber where I got the files in the first place tbh. Should the latest git repo be up to date?

Yes, definitely. The last major update was for 3.2.0, though there have been a few changes since then, so using the files from git is the way to go.

[qwerty]

Firstly does the help.hlp file need moving, it doesn't seem relevant to a pdf.
Also, the files have now been updated to match the git txt file content. I havn't yet worked on all of the content so some of it is just in verbatim tags until I get round to doing it (eg the keyset lists could look better in a table etc).

[Magnate]

Firstly does the help.hlp file need moving, it doesn't seem relevant to a pdf.
Also, the files have now been updated to match the git txt file content. I havn't yet worked on all of the content so some of it is just in verbatim tags until I get round to doing it (eg the keyset lists could look better in a table etc).

No problem. It would be really good to have this for 3.3.0 so please post it when you're happy with it.

[qwerty]

OK all, I think I've got all of it into ok formatting, any comments or suggestions? Otherwise I think it is probably ready for 3.3...

[Magnate]

OK all, I think I've got all of it into ok formatting, any comments or suggestions? Otherwise I think it is probably ready for 3.3...

Hi there - did you update to the latest help files? There is still a "308.tex" in your repository.

I will try and update the help files with the 3.3 changes in the next couple of weeks. This will mean updating your tex files with those changes too, so that we can circulate them with the 3.3 release. I'll post here when I've done that.

Many thanks for your continuing contributions.

[qwerty]

Sorry, I forgot to remove the 308 files, they're gone now. Just let me know when the files need updating and I'll get to it.