PDF Manual

edited February 2022 in KLayout Support

Hello,

I found a Klayout 0.26 pdf manual.

Is there a more recent pdf version, or is this good enough? I prefer a continuous a pdf manual rather than html docs and links.

Shon.

Comments

  • You can use 0.26 if you like, but the PDF manual is not provided by me. My deployment path is HTML and I don't plan to publish a PDF document as well.

    Matthias

  • Well Foo,

    Thank you for your time.

  • I prefer a (well constructed) PDF manual for reasons such as
    a "search window" and linear document that you don't have to
    bounce between pages up / down to navigate, the navigation
    pane is handy if headings are harvested to support that.

    I made one once for Xschem by wading through every page
    of that HTML manual. Later on Stefan came up with a way
    to automate that process. You might like to contact him to
    see whether it's an easy uptake for klayout.

  • Hi Jim,

    I'm not so much afraid of the automation, more of the outcome.

    The documentation was written in a piecewise mode and I'm afraid a large document will read more like independent snippets pasted together. I guess it will not be fun. After all, I'm not a technical writer.

    Matthias

  • edited February 2022

    Hi Matthias,

    I like the content of the online version, and I don't mind the output you mentioned. It's good that the docs are self contained pages with data. The manual reads like a manual and not an essay, this is great!

    I'm not always available online to click through the many links to find an answer to my problem. And just like dick_freebird typed, a pdf provides features such as word search which would be a complicated thing to do with multiple web links.

    Thank you

  • edited March 2022

    Update: here is a sample I generated from the documentation sources: https://www.klayout.org/downloads/dropbox/offline-manual.pdf

    It needs some polishing - for example, not all links are working - but basically that is the quality I can provide.

    It's a decent 2000+ pages even though I stripped the Qt binding classes.

    Looking forward to your feedback,

    Matthias

  • A cursory check's impressions:

    1) Tight and pretty, more than just a html-stack "paste job".
    Prettier than anything I've done by hand.

    2) Cross-links and index seem to work perfectly

    3) Got to a "Classes" section which was all cross-links, in this
    section I'd think a line after the link that summarizes its purpose /
    use, might help someone scanning for function and not knowing
    the right name. But that needs some direct typing by someone
    who knows. There is a description down in the individual
    class-member sections but that's sort of "after the fact" in the
    context of trying to figure out which of the hundreds, to read.
    Maybe something like a 2-column table mapping function to
    name, maybe keyworded?

  • Very good! Thanks for your comments! :)

    I'm going to give it some polishing - BTW, I just added a TOC at the beginning. The classes should look a bit better now - the description column was missing. Maybe you can check again.

    Best regards,

    Matthias

  • Hi,

    Thank you for the pdf. Time to cuddle up on the couch with it.

  • Enjoy ... but honestly there is better literature.

    Like this:

  • This is cool, awesome~! Thanks!

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