[Attaullah Shah]

haghish I am glad to know that the breakthrough happened. Since I am using docx, can you just email me prototype at your earliest accomodates docx

[haghish]

I have attached the new vesion of MarkDoc (pre 3.6.3) here, replacing the css(filename) option with template(filename) and you can use it with docx, odt, and CSS at the moment. Latex template will be added in the next release.

[haghish]

wbuchanan

Thanks now I know what do you refer to as notebook. I had tried iPython and I also had a look at Jupiter. They seem to be very similar. They are interesting alternatives and certainly offer more attractive visual features. But we shall see what are their applications in real life and how well they support daily activities.

[wbuchanan]

Jupyter is a fork of iPython that only included the language agnostic components of the system. So, you can seamlessly work across Python, Julia, R, and several other languages assuming you've installed the appropriate kernels for the messaging used on the backend. GitHub also has support for publishing and rendering notebooks as well. The alternatives go well beyond the presentation, and are more impressive for the integration of multiple languages and shared data objects via the kernels that pass the messages back and forth in the back-end. As far as seeing support in daily activities, given the wide-spread use of Python in data science and machine learning, it is already extremely widely adopted (at least in the context of data science and tech companies in the US). I'm not sure what you mean specifically about seeing what the applications are since it serves a similar purpose as a command line, with the added benefit of being able to edit previously executed code.

[Attaullah Shah]

The new version works. Thanks for your support. I have found only one difference between the created cocument and the template document. The background color of source code style is like highilighting each line, showing small blank lines in between, while the template document has all uniformly filled background color. Can you comment on this why this happens, any workaround?

[haghish]

wbuchanan I don't think it serves a "similar purpose." Otherwise, there would be no need for a "word processor" or notebook. Tools are for a purpose and one shall ask "which tool makes the program more reliable and efficient" and makes "tracking errors/bugs" easier. All an experienced programmer needs is a text editor with ideally a syntax highlighter. Tools that offer extraordinary functions are not necessarily a replacement for a regular text editor and I doubt they ever will be. I want to see if these tools are used for developing programs of say, 30,000 lines of code instead of a home work of 30 lines.

The same argument can be repeated about literate programming software and it's really valid. I can ask questions like the following:

• How does using a word processor (i.e. notebook) improve programming procedure
• Does it reduce the flow of the code for experienced programmers
• How does the "explanations and text" confuse the programmers to debug or discover a fault in the program
• Who really needs such a tool?

We often think a tool with more functionality is an improvement to our programming practice. But I greatly doubt that. i even think literate programming, or in case of using notebook, writing explanations, if not done correctly, imposes more harm than benefit.

[haghish]

Attaullah Shah The reason is "line breaking". If you wish to create code boxes, you should "wrap lines." Edit your style as follows.

1. Modify the style
2. Go to Paragraph section (i.e. Format > Paragraph)
3. Click on "line and page breaks" tab
4. In the "Textbox Options" set Tight Wrap to ALL
5. Save

See my template attached...

Nevertheless, it seems Pandoc does not reference the styles in docx. The source code has "no wrapping" and this is why the lines in the exported document are not in the "code box". But this only become an issue if you insist to apply a background color.

I already have an idea how to get around this. But for now, here's what I suggest you for the next step. if you're still interested in this, repeat the same procedure for Open Office /Libre Office ODT format. Create a reference open office template and give it a try. If I am not mistaken, I had done that long ago. Give it a try and let me know. At the moment, ODT is better supported by Pandoc.

[Attaullah Shah]

Thanks for your comments. I shall continue without the background color. Great efforts, markdoc solves a major issue of documentation, results, and graphs, all in one place.

[wbuchanan]

haghish A command line interpreter and a notebook serve nearly identical purposes with the difference being visual display and layout. A decent text editor is only half of the battle, since debugging is likely to be where a significant amount of time is spent when developing new software and/or interactively testing patches/updates. Using a notebook for the development of a large piece of software would be just slightly more intelligent than using a command line directly for the same task. However, working on things interactively (as I mentioned previously....several times...) is where the purpose of notebook and a command line have significant enough overlap for them to be used interchangeably in many contexts (you can create visualizations from a command line, but I would assume most people would generally want the visual feedback to confirm their intuitions). Lastly, a notebook has absolutely nothing to do with a word processor. At the end of the day it is window dressing around a command line interface.

[haghish]

wbuchanan

The idea of dividing a code into "interconnected" active sections is attractive though. Does the notebook show you how updating a code chunk (cell?) influences other chunks? This could be useful in a very long analysis code. Do you have any comment/experience on this?

[wbuchanan]

haghish the last time I looked at any of this stuff the cells were still treated as distinct objects. So you could modify an earlier cell but it would not cascade through the subsequent cells automatically. That said, it would still be possible to interpret all of the cells again in which case the update would then cascade through the later cells.

[haghish]

Attaullah Shah

markdoc 3.6.4 was released today. On my machine (Mac 10.10.3) it can produce Microsoft Word docx, by keeping all of the details of the template document, including the "background color". You could try it on your computer and confirm if it has solved the issue completely.

[Attaullah Shah]

i tried the new version and received the following error message

   markdoc checkiu, replace export(docx) statax template(Autodata.docx) Weaver package is required: ssc install weaver   file not found r(601);  end of do-file  r(601);

I already have weaver as shown by the ssc install command

 ssc install weaver checking weaver consistency and verifying not already installed... the following files already exist and are different: c:\ado\plus\w\weave.ado c:\ado\plus\w\weaver.sthlp c:\ado\plus\c\codes.ado c:\ado\plus\d\div.ado c:\ado\plus\h\html.ado c:\ado\plus\i\img.ado c:\ado\plus\r\report.ado c:\ado\plus\r\results.ado c:\ado\plus\t\tble.ado c:\ado\plus\t\tble.sthlp c:\ado\plus\t\txt.ado c:\ado\plus\t\txt.sthlp c:\ado\plus\w\weavend.ado c:\ado\plus\w\weavercheck.ado c:\ado\plus\w\weaverstyle.ado c:\ado\plus\w\weaverversion.ado no files installed or copied (no action taken) r(602);

[haghish]

Attaullah Shah Are you using MarkDoc version 3.6.4? This is really a weird error. My guess is that you're having 3.6.3 which had a major bug.

• statax option is only for the HTML output or PDF from the HTML...
• Does this problem happen only when you add the template?

[haghish]

This document is just out of Windows machine, which is the MarkDoc's torture test. and it runs on both my Mac and Windows.

if your problem remains after updating MarkDoc, please provide a dofile and the template so that I can debug it.

Thank you