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From the header of the website: > arXiv Vanity renders academic papers from arXiv as responsive web pages so you don’t have to squint at a PDF. Why aren't mor
by foo101 7y ago
From the header of the website:
> arXiv Vanity renders academic papers from arXiv as responsive web pages so you don’t have to squint at a PDF.
Why aren't more PDFs displayed like this on the web? I thought the math stuff would be a problem but this site shows the math stuff alright.
Anyone knows how to reliably convert complex PDFs to beautiful web pages like this?
- currymj 7y agowith arXiv the TeX source is available for download (under the "Other formats" link), which I think is what arXiv-vanity uses. I imagine it would be really tough to go reliably from arbitrary PDF to HTML without screwing up the math and figures.
- Doxin 7y agoI mean firefox' built in pdf-reader is javascript based. I imagine it renders to a canvas instead of to html, but it doesn't seem like an impossibility to render to html in any case.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- kleiba 7y agoI read scientific PDFs on a daily basis. I never knew that this was a problem.
- rch 7y agoPDFs can be annoying on a small tablet or phone. It seems like I used to have more display options, but I tried to catch up on some reading on my last flight and I couldn't find an option to reflow the text.
- kleiba 7y agoAdmittedly, I do not read scientific PDFs on tablets, let alone phones.
- jonsen 7y agoThe math stuff is not quite alright if you compare it to the PDF. Besides that the PDF is absolutely preferable on iPad Safari.
- marmaduke 7y agoIndeed. But the reflow and good readability trumps the few mistakes made.
- sp332 7y agoThe math stuff is being rendered with a library called MathJax https://www.mathjax.org/ https://www.mathjax.org/