Talk:Reading/Web/PDF Functionality/2017/11

About giving feedback

Please read Reading/Web/PDF Functionality and comment on the plans we lay out there, to tell us what you need from the PDF service. We're especially interested in what you need in the future that doesn't exist in the plans laid out there – if there's a bug with something that should work right now (e.g. you get an error message when you try to create a PDF), we need to fix it, of course, but that would have been on the agenda.

Updates:

- Kerning and spacing issues (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T178665): there has been a few reports on spacing issues within PDF rendering. The readers web team is currently looking into a solution. We will first be updating the fonts for PDFs (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T181200) over the week of November 27. This will resolve some but not all of the spacing issues. We'll be looking further into the remaining issues after the initial fix.

- Update on the book creator. We're still in the process of performance testing the new renderer (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T178278). Once this stage is complete, we will be able to provide more details on its capacity to render books.

I loved the previous 2-page version

I actually loved the 2-page version ! It was short, sweet, easy to read. I could use it as a guide book through all my trips. The single page version is fine but messy and larger now. Harivishnu (talk) 07:36, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Harivishnu. I prefer the two column pages with wide page margins. 2600:1700:D591:1170:97B:9353:9FFF:BF93 (talk) 14:07, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Major improvement! And Two Issues

Hi! Thank you to the team that created the new PDF generator. From a formatting perspective, it's really quite excellent. It combines the best of both worlds in terms of the double column versus single column styles and is a far more visually accessible layout. It resolves the problem with the font being too large on the single column style, and the problem with words getting broken up with hyphens in order to make the double columns. And the vertical lines next to block quotes are great. Two issues: currently, there appears to be a glitch in which letters and inline citation numbers are overlapping each other. Also, the pixel quality for thumbnail photos is very low resolution compared to the two-column PDF format. Higher resolution would be really useful. Thanks! Sturgeontransformer Sturgeontransformer (talk) 22:02, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

THIS IS BEAUTIFUL

Love the new wiki pdf formatter, makes it feel more readable

Kudos guys 182.64.122.228 (talk) 03:35, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Issues with LaTeX-formula rendering

When generating PDF files of articles with LaTeX-formula there are a few problems:

• Block-formula are larger than normal (why?). Long ones like in the article "Kerr-Neuman metric" get cut-off on the right.

• The font used in the images does not fit into the text and is not aligned properly.

• Sometimes only LaTeX-formula at the top of the article are rendered and the others appear as broken image icons with LaTeX-code next to them. This happened to me three times already. Clicking on "Download as PDF" a second time solved it.
• It would be nice if they appear as text rather than images. Then it would be possible to copy them or highlight parts of them like in a usual PDF file. 92.225.228.201 (talk) 00:44, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Some letters are not in the right position

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violinkonzert_(Sibelius)

e.g.

Die Reprise variiert die vorgestellten Themen weitläufig. 80.138.226.105 (talk) 20:28, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Huh. Thanks for reporting. Johan (WMF) (talk) 22:19, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Empty pictures (Walhalla)

The PDF-version of Walhalla (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walhalla) "tries" to put 3 pictures (of 5 in html) in a row. There is space for the three pictures and the captions are there: "Empore mit Innenfries", "Rückwärtige Ansicht" and "Einer der 12 Marmorsessel von Ernst Mayer" but the left and right pictures are missing/empty. 178.142.72.117 (talk) 21:37, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting. Johan (WMF) (talk) 22:18, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Likely phab:T178658 again —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 22:48, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Impression PdF

La fonction n'est plus utilisable depuis a moins une semaine......

Merci d'intervenir rapidement... 89.92.138.190 (talk) 22:44, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

good its veryful to us 14.139.85.68 (talk) 12:43, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Opciones básicas

Bajé un pdf sobre Groenlandia, resulta imposible leer o trabajar con "eso". No hay que subrayar más los links y, probablemente, desactivarlos. Es un absurdo para la lectura estar saltando entre palabras, rayas y carteles emergentes. Leer es leer. Si tienen dificultades con la función, recomiendo que permitan optar por Opción 1 Sin Links - Opción 2 Con Links. Ustedes tienen que ponerse en lugar de la gente normal, que baja materiales porque los necesita, olviden lo eventual, eso siempre existirá, no se sumen a empresas que no saben leer y escribir y que, además, le importa poco el proceso de aprendizaje. Que viva la lectura y la escritura que a los humanos tanto nos ha costado. Muchas gracias. 170.51.35.220 (talk) 19:02, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

The new pdf formatting is very poor for this article!

Text formatting is still having major problems. (Page I downloaded: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Study_of_History )

Character overlapping is appearing everywhere. It's not solely the result of justified layout--single-line paragraphs and last line of paragraphs have the problem also.

Capture of a section as it appears in my pdf:

http://i65.tinypic.com/2ztbjuq.jpg 198.200.132.41 (talk) 21:18, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

The Pdf files I created for term Majapahit under Bahasa Indonesia, seems very crowded, all the fonts too much small. 124.78.205.109 (talk) 05:32, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your report. This issues is something we're already looking into. You can check on our progress here: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T178665 OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 15:34, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

there is a problem with the option " downold us pdf" I really need to fix it ... thanks

there is a problem with the option " downold us pdf" I really need to fix it ... thanks Achraf mesfioui (talk) 17:41, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi, thank you for your report. Could you tell us a bit more about the issues you were seeing? OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 12:11, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

WHEN the hell will it be possible to use the book generator again ??

You are highly impertinent, you beg for donations at all times but are not even able to repair such a tiny function ?? Marcus-wilke (talk) 11:58, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

The tiny function was a completely separate parser running on old servers that hadn't seen maintenance in 5 years.. It's gonna take a bit more time to replace it completely and your patience is highly appreciated. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 11:21, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

well, still NOT running yet, huh ?? So, how much patience do you expect from your users? 1 year ? 2 ? or even more  ?

It was the main reason for any donation, and now, afzter I finally paid some bucks, it doesn't work any more, already for well over a year !!!

That's almost kinda like fraud ... at least I, peronally and subjectively, perceive it that way. Marcus-wilke (talk) 02:44, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

In the meantime you can use http://mediawiki2latex.wmflabs.org/. You can use to create PDF file as well as other formats from articles or collections. The only problem is that the capacities on the server are very limited, so it will only work for single articles or collections of a very few articles. If you want more you will have to install the current version of ubuntu and use the mediawiki2latex package from the command line. Good luck. Dirk Hünniger (talk) 07:08, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Hey Marcus,

I'm sure they are trying their best, and you are coming off as being a bit rude about it. Not sure if you meant it that way, just saying your tone is a bit harsh.

Also, a donation means to give freely without expecting something back, it was not purchasing the option for generating books. They might also be using the money to keep the servers running, paying employees, generating and writing up information, contracting people to fix the book generating function, etc.

"Update: (23 April 2018) PediaPress will take over the development of the books-to-PDF functionality. See Reading/Web/PDF Functionality for more information."

"Updates: (24 February 2018) [....] - Update on the book creator. We're still in the process of performance testing the new renderer (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T178278). Once this stage is complete, we will be able to provide more details on its capacity to render books."

If you would like to see what the donations are used for, for example, check out:

1) https://donate.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:LandingPage&country=ZA&uselang=en&utm_medium=sidebar&utm_source=donate&utm_campaign=C13_en.wikipedia.org

"Where your donation goes

Technology: Servers, bandwidth, maintenance, development. Wikipedia is one of the top 10 websites in the world, and it runs on a fraction of what other top websites spend.

People and Projects: The other top websites have thousands of employees. We have about 300 staff to support a wide variety of projects, making your donation a great investment in a highly-efficient not-for-profit organization."

2) https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/FAQ/en

== "Why should I donate and where does my money go? ==

Donations to the Wikimedia Foundation help sustain free knowledge through Wikipedia and our ecosystem of projects. Your contributions support technology to keep the sites fast, secure, and accessible; for Wikimedia programs and initiatives to expand access and support free knowledge globally; and for grants to volunteer contributors to improve and enrich the knowledge on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia sites. Your donations support this work, and so much more, to ensure Wikipedia remains accessible and valuable for many generations to come."

3) On the same page linked at 2, just a bit further down:

== "Where can I find more financial information? ==

The Wikimedia Foundation's 2016 - 2017 annual report covers the fiscal year from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2017. The Foundation's annual report shares some of the voices of the hundreds of thousands of people who make the Wikimedia movement possible.

The Wikimedia Foundation 2017-2018 Annual Plan describes our budget for the current fiscal year. It contains a summary of our strategic goals as an organization, financial details on spending and revenue, and detailed explanations and risk analysis." 196.21.98.134 (talk) 07:21, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Why isn't there any direct link to my book any more ???

Why isn't there any direct link to my book any more ???  Marcus-wilke (talk) 12:09, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi - thanks for your report. The changes we are currently implementing should not have affected the functionality of previously saved books, but it's possible we might have a bug somewhere else. Could you let us know the steps you took to access your book previously? OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 12:06, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Font Size

I understand small fonts to save paper, but I think it's goon far too far for those of us past a certain age. Why can't font size be configured as an option? As it is, I'm copying simple articles into LibreOffice for printing, and just giving up on Wikipedia for math, science, engineering, CS, etc. 130.85.90.155 (talk) 21:10, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

wikipedia se esta poniendo wikicomercial,el formato PDF es de lo mas simple,pero la idea es que ocupen datos de de internet, 179.4.150.159 (talk) 20:16, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

"Download as PDF" service setup

The option "Download as PDF" really work very bad. On the standard defined in this option page printing A4 document to fit only part of a large table. I propose to reset the default virtual PDF printer setting orientation to "Landscape" and the size "A4", and the best - "A3". Checked on the article "Transliteration of Russian in Latin alphabet". J.Kovalev (talk) 17:02, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Ver la teoría de gramática turca

Hola,no puedo descargarme la gramática de tucro,como puedo hacerlo?

Gracias. 46.37.82.153 (talk) 19:18, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Hola, gracias por avisarnos! Es esta la página a la que se  refería: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gram%C3%A1tica_del_turco ? Podría darnos más detalles sobre los problemas que vio? OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 12:03, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Missing Entries

I'm trying to export a sheet listing the state protected monuments found in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. When I try to use the export PDF functionality, there are many entries missing. 204.15.48.2 (talk) 20:36, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Hm, could you please provide a link to the page you're having a problem with? CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 20:47, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Sure. Here is the link to the page I tried to export to PDF.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Monuments_of_National_Importance_in_Chennai_circle 204.15.48.2 (talk) 20:53, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

I tried to see what was going on and I think I figured out the issue. My exported PDF is 13 pages long with the last page break in the table at "N-TN-C382"

I exported the table from the wiki page into a spreadsheet. There's a total of 144 entries. Exporting a PDF and doing the same gave me a different number of rows. What it looks like, to me, is that the page breaks are sometimes breaking up a row and splitting it into two pages.

I'm not exactly able to replicate the error you describe. Can you tell me more about what you see? CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 18:11, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

In my experience (yours may vary due to differences in the software being use) I've been able to select the contents of a wiki table and copy/past them into a blank spreadsheet. It's not a straightforward export feature, and may require some clean-up, but it might be a viable solution for this need. CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 16:50, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi - thanks for your report. We don't currently have a way to export a page into .xlm format. I also tested the article - were the issues you were seeing due to missing entries or entries having strange/inconsistent page breaks? When trying on chrome 62.0 I wasn't able to replicate any of the issues. Another option would be to try to use the browser printing functionality and then safe the file as a PDF although I am not sure how you would convert it to an .xlm afterwards. OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 11:45, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Inconsistent page breaks. That's a shame, would've saved a lot of trouble. I'll try your suggestion.

Thanks anyways. 204.15.48.2 (talk) 21:59, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

No program code from foldings

No program code from foldings in articles with foldings https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Одиночка_(шаблон_проектирования). In PDF there are only headers left. 195.43.90.254 (talk) 07:05, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

This issue is specific to the russian wikipedia, please contact the administrators of the Russian Wikipedia. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 15:01, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

where shuold i contact to? Link for PDF bugs leads here. 195.43.90.254 (talk) 09:38, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with russian wikipedia, but maybe someone on ru:Википедия:Форум can help you, or at least show you the way. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 09:45, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Why don't you adapt Pediapress software to solve the book generator problem?

Hi, your book generator creates problems but there is a Pediapress link on your page and as I look previews I see very good formating results. So why don't you adapt this software if it works perfectly? Aekarahan (talk) 19:33, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

That's the software we were using before. We are stepping away from that for a variety of reasons (mostly involving the parser of wikicode evolving, and the software not evolving with that). —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 09:23, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Why navigate to separate "download as pdf" page

Now that there is only one option for download as pdf (which finally seems to be working except for long pages taking a very long time to create pdf) I don't see the need to have to go to a separate page to download the pdf. Perhaps when you release it and don't need the notice that there are problems, just start the pdf download from the topic page, perhaps with an indented "leave feedback on pdf) link. 68.98.170.156 (talk) 15:35, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion. Johan (WMF) (talk) 16:18, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Updates on current issues from the readers web team

Thank you for all your feedback. A quick update on the issues reported so far:

- Kerning and spacing issues (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T178665): there has been a few reports on spacing issues within PDF rendering. The readers web team is currently looking into a solution. We will first be updating the fonts for PDFs (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T181200) over the week of November 27. This will resolve some but not all of the spacing issues. We'll be looking further into the remaining issues after the initial fix.

- Update on the book creator. We're still in the process of performance testing the new renderer (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T178278). Once this stage is complete, we will be able to provide more details on its capacity to render books. OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 13:02, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

The Download Button isn't working

Just tried to download and create a PDF of an article - the button doesn't work.

28 November 2017 @1414 AST 140.184.185.120 (talk) 18:15, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Could you give us a bit more information – which article, what browser you are using? Johan (WMF) (talk) 18:21, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Just tried to download and create a PDF of an article - in Turkish the button doesn't work.

I'm using Puffinbrowser because otherwise I can't access Wikipedia

Thanks for your interest 101.127.206.25 (talk) 00:20, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

@OVasileva (WMF), you might want to take a look at this. Johan (WMF) (talk) 07:04, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

The page is

Three days of the condor in Turkish 101.127.206.25 (talk) 00:25, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your report. Was this on desktop or mobile? Also, could you give us the operating system you were using and the version of puffinbrowser? We have encountered some issues with the PDF button on mobile that we are currently tracking here: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T182197 OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 15:39, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Add a waitbar feature

Sometimes, it takes quite some time to generates a pdf. The user might think the button is not working as it is in fact just slow. Therefore, it would be good to have a progress bar, so that the user can figure out that it is working and just processing. 81.13.254.237 (talk) 23:40, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

By the way, for large articles, the pdf generator is indeed very slow (at the limit of usability). For example, try to generate pdf of the matrix exponential article (it takes several whole minutes):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_exponential

In comparison, the previous pdf generator used to be faster. (I am not blaming, take it as a constructive feedback) 81.13.254.237 (talk) 23:52, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Upon reading the Title of this discussion, I thought the concept was interesting, however the request was different than expected, although still a useful thought provoking request.

As an addendum to adding a Waitbar feature, what is the possibility of adding a Link, to save current Pages for Future Printing? I see this much like Google handles Google Cloud Print services, in that the request is essentially Saved in a Folder, or something comparable, for future Printing capability.

Markhalsey (talk) 07:01, 13 January 2018 (UTC)Mark Halsey Markhalsey (talk) 07:01, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Size of generated pdf feels like 'quite large'

For large article with a lot of mathematical expressions, but no image, the size of the generated pdf seems quite large, especially because the pdf is supposed to contained only text data (even if some data are math expressions).

For example, consider the matrix exponential article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_exponential

The generated pdf will be about 1.02 Mo and there is no image in the article. I suppose this is because of the math expressions that are stored as vectorized path, leading to large size if there are a lot of them.

Is it possible to generate pdf like LaTeX does, leading to small pdf size even if there is lots of math? (with math expression as selectable text, not vectorized path) 81.13.254.237 (talk) 00:02, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

By the way, when generating the pdf of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_exponential

we can notice that some spaces are removed in the pdf, leading to words attached to each other. Of course, this does not happen in the original Wikipedia article. Moreover, this pdf issue is only a pdf 'display issue', when we copy-paste the text from the pdf, the space are there in the copied text. 81.13.254.237 (talk) 00:10, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Some mathematical expressions are missing in some articles

Consider the following article on Markov chains:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markov_chain

and generate the pdf out of it. Starting from the chapter 'Transient evolution', most of the mathematical expressions are not displayed in the pdf. Some of them are partly displayed (like some glitch), some are not displayed at all.

This does not send a good signal, and one would become paranoid of checking if all its pdf-generated articles from wikipedia are well rendered compared to the real on-line articles, especially with math expressions. 81.13.254.237 (talk) 00:33, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Johan (WMF) (talk) 01:04, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your report. Could you give us some detail on which browser and operating system you were using when you encountered the bug? I was not able to reproduce on Chrome 62.0.3202.94 OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 15:37, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay, it was an up-to-date Firefox at that time (most probably Firefox 57 Quantum) on Windows 10, 64 bits. (Using Chrome is bad for freedom :) ) 81.13.254.237 (talk) 00:00, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Size of the mathematical expressions too large compared to regular text

Generally speaking, the size of the mathematical expression is tremendously huge compared to the rest of the text. This is true for equations with inline mode but equations for display mode are even bigger.

I suggest that something should be done to correct this if this is possible. If not, we will live with it but it's a typographic flaw. 81.13.254.237 (talk) 00:53, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Johan (WMF) (talk) 01:04, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your report, we are currently tracking this under this task: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T181138 OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 11:15, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your devoted effort. 81.13.254.237 (talk) 22:52, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Implementation of subpages

wikisource follows the structure of subpages. The introduction content would be in the main page. The chapter content would be in sub pages. So while designing new pdf download option, let us introduce the concept of clubbing subpages too. Hence it would be easier to download the whole book into a neat pdf. The order of sub pages to be included can be implemented through some index pages. Currently wikisource use a tool called "ws-export". But currently the tool is having some issues. The implementation of the tool can be seen here https://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:WSexport The ws-export tool is using calibre. If we can implement the creation of book natively it would be excellent.

Regards,

J. Balaji. Balaji (talk) 11:52, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Noted. Thanks. Johan (WMF) (talk) 11:55, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Underline or add color to LINKED words

Please add blue colored links and/or underline works that are hot linked when creating a new PDF. In the old PDF, it was very hard to see if there was a link or not on a word unless you hovered your mouse over a word. 64.73.35.238 (talk) 19:38, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

don't change the things which are working

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

precisely why do you replace something which works by something which don't yet ? 109.15.176.205 (talk) 10:32, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Please refrain from calling people "dumbass". That's poisoning the discussion climate, which we don't allow. Civility is a core value on the Wikimedia wikis. You don't need to agree, but you need to disagree in a civil manner or you will no longer be able to write here.

As explained on Reading/Web/PDF Functionality it was actually not working. It had been gradually breaking down for a long time, and got to the point where we didn't have the resources to keep the old version up (not without sacrificing something else important). Johan (WMF) (talk) 13:36, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Please rest assured that it's unlikely that most organisations will ever enjoy switching from one PDF renderer to another enough that they will do it if everything is working fine and there are no problems to solve. Johan (WMF) (talk) 13:39, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.