Using DocRaptor to generate PDF

This is the first post on my journal of using DocRaptor to generate PDF. I will keep posting how I use the PDF generator for my course materials.

I write online courses on MakClass.com and would like to generate PDF book from my teaching materials. Previously, I had been using LeanPub to generate the PDFs. I also try generating PDF quickly by using Ulysses’ PDF export. But I need more freedoms than these approaches. I know that PrinceXML is the go-to PDF generation engine for converting my HTML content into PDF. But the price is too expensive for me until I met the DocRaptor. It provides the same PrinceXML engine but charges as a subscription base. 150 documents generation per month fits my needs. So I’m now trying to create PDF slides and PDF books from my course writings.

These are my 2 main categories:

1. Book content, such as my mobile first web design course.
2. Markdown slides, such as my Python slide.

Here are the results so far:

The result is so far so good. I am able to generate the book content into LeanPub similar result. The remote images are successfully embedded. I haven’t add code syntax highlighting yet. But the highlight works in my slides PDF output.

What works so far:

• Almost exactly the same output between PDF and HTML/CSS.
• Can create multiple columns by using float and CSS columns.

What needs more work:

• Avoid content overflow in slide, especially code blocks.
• Add code syntax highlight to book PDF generation.
• Add outline to the output PDF.

Here are the PDF output: