Who or what did the conversion to markdown? I originally did a markdown conversion but it required so much work to format it I didn't see the use for it. The PDF version is the one that all end-users want, and what the software pulls in the Help menu. That is generated from the .docx when it edited, using Microsoft Office (or LibreOffice on linux which it should be compatible with).

Also @aknrdureegaesr mentioned something that he wanted to do with that User Guide for GitHub pages. I believe he mentioned that in a group email the other day.

In any case the .docx needs work to bring it up to 2.5.0. Then export it to PDF for the website download. I was hoping @jsherer might have time to do that now that is easily available for editing. I did modify it a little bit in a couple spots, in particular the one section of it that explains directed commands. But I haven't had time to do a complete update to ver 2.5.0 yet and include all the new stuff for group messaging, etc..

Who or what did the conversion to markdown? I originally did a markdown conversion but it required so much work to format it I didn't see the use for it. The PDF version is the one that all end-users want, and what the software pulls in the Help menu. That is generated from the .docx when it edited, using Microsoft Office (or LibreOffice on linux which it should be compatible with).

The initial work was docx to odt to markdown. Then a bunch of grunt work. The user manual will build under Doxygen, which can put out html and/or pdf as requested. There may have been some magic and/or chanting around a big pot involved as well...

Yeah, I guess it won't hurt anything. Andreas had mentioned something about Jekyll which I'm not familiar with. I think it's supposed to take markdown, wave a magic wand over it, and turn it into a static website or something. I'm not sure what purpose it would serve - the PDF is the one that users want to download to have a local copy, or have display in their web browser when called from the JS8Call software menu.

For 2.6.0 (or any patch release for 2.5.x) I'm going to update the JS8Call software to pull it from the github.io site instead of js8call-improved.com. That way we have control over uploading a newer version of it.

So, I was going under the idea that the User Guide would get updated on a release cycle. docx format is just annoying for me to deal with, and it doesn't really version control well.

So how do we get it converted to PDF for a downloadable version?

So how do we get it converted to PDF for a downloadable version?

It's a few setting changes in the Doxyfile. I haven't had it turned on for my runs, for expediency.

Ok, well. Let's get this in master and try one of those PDF runs as time permits. I assume the user guide is now edited as markdown instead of the .docx. The .docx is pretty nice to work with in Office 2024. Tried it with LibreOffice and it's a little clunky there. And linux LibreOffice doesn't have the Microsoft sans serif font I was going to convert it to instead of Arial font.

Okie dookie. I did try a quick run, and got a pdf, but it's got issues. Will have to find time to look at it more in depth.

Markdown is more universal for editing the document. The .docx works very well with Microsoft Office 2024. In LibreOffice it has some formatting issues. If I convert the font to Microsoft sans serif then it formats fine in both Office 2024 and LibreOffice on Mac. But for whatever reason Mac LibreOffice has that font, linux LibreOffice does not have it and it tries to replace it with Liberation serif, which doesn't work and none of the pages line up.

docx is universal in the business and engineering world with Microsoft sans serif font for manuals and documents exported to PDF, but it doesn't appear that linux tools can deal with that.

But for whatever reason Mac LibreOffice has that font, linux LibreOffice does not have it and it tries to replace it with Liberation serif, which doesn't work and none of the pages line up.

@Chris-AC9KH My Linux Mint 22.2 system does have the Microsoft Sans Serif font, and it's accessible in LibreOffice. I'm fairly certain I installed it at some time in the distant past. It can be downloaded from several places, for instance: https://font.download/font/microsoft-sans-serif

73,
-Joe-
K0OG

Yeah, it must be something you have to install extra on the system. It looks like we're going to go with markdown instead for editing the document. And figure out how to convert it to PDF for downloads instead of exporting .docx from Office.

Generally the conversion process from Markdown to PDF requires going to (la)TeX first, and then generating the PDF from that. Doxygen can go straight from markdown to html, which is the link @Chris-AC9KH posted. It can also go to latex, if you have it installed.

I'm doing some work on that now.

@wmiler no need to waste too much time on PDF. That can be done easily by loading the web page into a web browser and exporting it as PDF. I did it two ways - one with the Table of Contents, then edited the Table of Contents out. I honestly don't think the ToC is needed for the PDF version.