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by exe34 782 days ago
I had the idea that handwriting, an infinite canvas and cross linking between ideas were going to be a big part of my external knowledge base. So I learnt a lot of technical skills that would allow me to put something like that together. Then right around the time I got an eink tablet and thought I'd start making something, I started using org-roam and it seems more than enough to contain all the information I tend to want to record. If I really want to handwrite or sketch something, I'll just do it on paper and snap a picture, crop it and paste it in Emacs (I have a script that copies it into a subdirectory) and the whole thing lives in a git repo.
1 comments
kkfx 782 days ago
You might like artist mode (while personally I use it only to "fill" pdf non-fillable form with TiKz) :-)
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exe34 782 days ago
Nice, will have a look
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kkfx 782 days ago
To quickly locate, via artist-mode the spot to be filled in a pdf, view via pdf-tools https://github.com/Nidish96/cart.el as dummy handwritten fonts I like:

  \usepackage{pbsi} % for most text except all-caps
  \usepackage{fontspec} % for all-caps, require XeLaTeX o LuaLaTeX
  \usepackage{pifont} % for check marks 

  \usepackage{xcolor} % for a dummy ink color
  \newcommand{\blue}[1]{\textcolor{blue}{#1}} % as a handy wrapper
usable like, for as much pages as you need (a \clearpage between them)

  % block for page 1, repeat the block for 2, ...
  \begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture,overlay]
      \node at (current page.center) {\includegraphics[page=1]{ToBeFilledPDF}};
      \begin{scope}[shift={(current page.south west)},every node/.style={anchor=base west}]
   
      \node at (50mm,237mm) {{\blue{\bsifamily normal text}}};
      \node at (29mm,170mm) {{\blue{\fontsize{12}{13}\selectfont\bsifamily scale text size as needed}}};
      \node at (62mm,199.7mm) {{\blue{\ding{51}}}}; % a checkmark 
      \node at (135mm,24mm) {\includegraphics[scale=1]{signature.png}};
      \node at (1mm,2mm) {{\blue{\fontspec{QTChanceryType}\bfseries ALL CAPS}}};

      \end{scope}
  \end{tikzpicture}
where coordinates came out from cart.el wizard-clicks, then eventual small change by hand to perfectly align. It's not super quick, Xournalpp is quicker, but via LaTeX you can input anything, with very nice dummy handwritten fonts, you can add images if needed (for instance insurances form at least in Italy/France) etc. Next step is eventually make them (a bit long) a PDF/A, adding an eventual vector version of the signature, adding an eventual PADES signature or even embedding the LaTeX source into the pdf, just to teach a lesson to those who in the 2024 still send non-fillable pdf forms meant to be printed, filled by hand, scanned back...
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