Guy Rutenberg

It has been three years since I’ve released the original version of cssrtl.py (and two since it’s re-release). The old version did a nice job, but experience gained during that time led me to write from scratch a new version. I’ve detailed more than a month ago, the basic principles and ideas that guided me to design a better tool to help adapting CSS files from left-to-right to right-to-left.

The guidelines weren’t just empty words, they were written while working on the Hebrew adaptation to the Fusion theme and in the same time writing a new proof-of-concept version of cssrtl.py. The original intent was to release a more mature version of that code when it will be completed. However, due to the apparent shortage of time in the present and foreseeable future, I can’t see myself complete the project any time soon. So following the “release early” mantra, I’ve decided to release the code as-is. As I said, the code is in working state, but not polished, so it may be of benefit but may contain bugs. If you find any bugs or have any suggestions, I would be glad to hear.
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After writing the post on converting PNMs to DjVu I’ve ran into some trouble scanning documents written in blue ink. The problem: XSane didn’t allow me to set the threshold for converting the scanned image to line-art (B&W). So, I tried scanning the document in grayscale and in color and convert it afterwards to bitonal using imagemagick. This ended up with two results. When I used the -monochrome command line switch, the conversion looked good, but it used halftones (dithering), when I tried to convert it to DjVu it resulted in a document size twice as large as normal B&W would. The other thing that I tried is using the -threshold switch. The DjVu compressed document size was much better now, but the document was awful looking, either it was too dark, or some of the text disappeared. After giving it some thought I knew I can find a better solution.
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