Ihor Radchenko writes: > LaTeX is just one export backend to worry about. From broader > perspective, we can have a generic template library.
Nice idea, I agree. I was targeting LaTeX specifically because of the questions that have been raised in this thread and other parallel threads. And because LaTeX is an extremely complex beast. And it has become much more complex over the years[1]. No two LaTeX documents are alike just as no two LaTeX users are alike. Just take a look at tex.stackexchange.com to realize that reality... (ConTeXt can be a good alternative for those who don't want to mess with the complexity of LaTeX. In ConTeXt you don't need to load a package for everything ---modules at most, but that's another story---, so almost everything is out-of-the-box there). [1] And there is also the problem of multiplicity: three TeX engines coexisting at the same time, LaTeX2ε coexisting with LaTeX 3, etc. > TEC is working on something along these lines. See > https://tecosaur.github.io/emacs-config/config.html#cleverer-preamble Thanks for the pointer! I did not know it and it seems to me a tremendously interesting work. I'll keep an eye on it. In my workflow, I am used to writing the configuration of a LaTeX document (aka, "the preamble") through .sty files that I build according to the requirements of each project. That is, I write my own packages. That's probably why I have a bias of opinion here (I use LaTeX for typesetting and editorial production, so I need more control), but I tend to think that a LaTeX preamble is something so ductile that achieving a certain degree of automation is an arduous task. At least one automation that covers all possible use cases. That's where I got the idea of being able to have a library of templates to cover different types of documents, even the most idiosyncratic ones. Or, at least, that they can serve as an inspiration to other users. Best regards, Juan Manuel