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I'm a designer working at a software company, and it's been decided that we're going to be using Latex to design some newsletters for our customers. I've designed one as I normally would in Adobe Indesign. I've been asked to recreate that design in Latex. I am pretty horrible with code. I could probably whip something up (badly) in a few months, but I'm hoping there is SOME kind of way to either convert an Indesign layout, photoshop layout, or something a visual guy like me can use. Either a stand-alone app, or some way of converting a previously made file. Either way works for me, provided I don't have to muck-about with Latex... the designs are pretty complex...looking like high-end email campaigns...

Romain Picot
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Tyson Kingsbury exador
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  • any help would be appreciated! – Tyson Kingsbury exador Sep 14 '15 at 14:36
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    Do you have an example of the layout? While Inkscape can output to LaTeX this is not really flexible. – Alexander Sep 14 '15 at 14:53
  • Have you looked at LyX? But it is pretty hard to use well if you can't manage the underlying code when required. Your company's decision strikes me as a rather odd one. – cfr Sep 14 '15 at 14:54
  • Here's an example of the type of newsletter... http://cibc.digitalagent.ca/delegate/services/campaigns/7973/html#feature1 – Tyson Kingsbury exador Sep 14 '15 at 15:18
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    No idea on a useful application. Showcase of beautiful typography done in TeX & friends shows what can be done, but whether or not this is easy enough is for you to decide. I agree with @cfr, this is an odd choice for the company, unless we totally misunderstand how complicated the layout is, or where LaTeX would help. – Mike Renfro Sep 14 '15 at 15:18
  • i think the idea is to 'automate' newsletter designs....the header would stay the same, as would certain aspects of the layout, but new text would be 'slotted in' every month....new articles etc.... – Tyson Kingsbury exador Sep 14 '15 at 15:20
  • what i have to do is create the overall layout....one like the newsletter i just posted, and others in different styles etc, depending on a customers branding etc... – Tyson Kingsbury exador Sep 14 '15 at 15:21
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    Especially if you need to create an overall (re-usable) layout, I think you will have to bite the bullet and get down to coding. I don't think LyX would be able to build document classes very well. – moewe Sep 14 '15 at 16:24
  • the example you link is explicitly directed to an interactive session; latex isn't really designed for that -- it's designed for print output. – barbara beeton Sep 14 '15 at 18:18
  • thanks Barbara...I should have been clearer. We're producing 2 things, one is an html newsletter, the second is a pdf version. some folks here want the pdf version to be created using Tex – Tyson Kingsbury exador Sep 14 '15 at 20:05
  • From what I've learned today, loading the current PDF into Inkscape and saving to Latex 'may' be a possible solution.... – Tyson Kingsbury exador Sep 14 '15 at 20:06
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    @TysonKingsburyexador Not if you want to create a document class or package which can be re-used etc. It is not going to create the kind of interface which you'll need to provide to users of the class. moewe is right: if you need a re-usable layout, you are going to have to get to grips with the coding to at least some extent. I can't see Inkscape working for this. LyX is probably better, but still unlikely to do the job you need it to do, as moewe noted. – cfr Sep 14 '15 at 21:00
  • Who exactly is going to be doing the slotting in? – cfr Sep 14 '15 at 21:09
  • can't thank all of you enough for trying help me out... very much appreciated! Essentially I'd like to create a template. Something with something that looks pretty much like the newsletter email i posted earlier (in terms of branding, colours, styling etc) right now it's all done once a month by hand, but the team here would like it to be 'automatic'. As soon as the text comes in from our customers, they'd set it into the Tex script (that includes the layout), and it would 'automatically' spit out a custom pdf. My hope was that there was a 'design' tool for Latex like Indesign... – Tyson Kingsbury exador Sep 15 '15 at 20:14
  • or, if not a design tool, then some existing design tool that could 'export' the needed Latex script. much like some wysiwyg editor for html... or failing that, something that would convert a file like html into Latex... – Tyson Kingsbury exador Sep 15 '15 at 20:16
  • Mhhh, I don't know if there is really a tool that can output good document classes (which is really what you want). The only WYSIWG-like tools I know of are listed in What is the optimal LaTeX WYSIWYG editor/platform (quality/price). But for what you need I don't think there is a design tool. – moewe Sep 16 '15 at 11:30
  • The 3rd party link with an example of the desired output does no longer work -> this questions is basically unanswerable if we have no idea what is required. – samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz Dec 28 '17 at 21:09

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