vim is no text editor, it's a multipurpose UI and I wish it

could dump a textual version of the state of a buffer
In-Reply-To: <Z8LFql0A9KGYU0QN@trackstand>

On Sat, Mar 01, 2025 at 09:30:34AM +0100, 'meine' via vim_use wrote:
> Repeatedly there are discussions on 'what the mouse', or like here 'what
> the print'. IMHO/AFAIK Vim isn't designed for that. Vim isn't a 'word
> processor' and do-it-all-tool like LiberOffice Write or MS Word.

I'm very found of :make, quickfix, ctags and filename-modifiers and I
share most of what you said (I just droped pandoc for lowdown but this
is off topic).

so I have a makefile with

%.pdf: %.md ; lowdown -tms $< | groff -ms -mfr -Tpdf -Kutf8 > $@

and my .vimrc with

	set aw
	nnoremap <c-s> :make!<cr>

*but* vim is much more than an editor considering your can write to,
read from and filter with pipes wich makes vim an incredible tool for
basically work with anything. I gave a talk about it at the sl con:

	https://github.com/eiro/talk-acme-changed-my-life

also: I wish I can use hardcopies to print stuff that really relies on
vim features. namely, I wrote so many slides with my plugin

	https://github.com/eiro/slides.vim

and the best I have to get a printed version of the slides is to take a
screenshot of my terminal. when I :ha > %:r.ps, I have those issues

* all the digraphs I use (lot of 'BOX DRAWINGS') are replaced by a ¿
* nor ^L neither conceals made by the syntax highlights are honored so
  the whole page setting is broken.

I never took the time to investigate but if someone have a better
knowledge of this feature, any improvement of this situation would be
great.

Actually, What I really would like is vim to produce a text that
descrbite how and why parts of the text are rendered so anyone could
parse it and write its own PS/PDF/whatever generator and pipe it to lpr.

regards,

-- 
Marc Chantreux
Pôle CESAR (Calcul et services avancés à la recherche)
Université de Strasbourg
14 rue René Descartes,
BP 80010, 67084 STRASBOURG CEDEX
03.68.85.60.79

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