`\pdfinterwordspaceon` incompatible with MikTex

[AndyClifton]

Using \pdfinterwordspaceon in WindForS.sty causes MikTex to not compile.

Issues:

1. What is the role of \pdfinterwordspaceon?
2. Is there a need for it?

[AndyClifton]

Fixed in release 1.3

[p10n]

\pdfinterwordspaceon is for accessibility and proper copy-pasting of text from the PDF:
By its original intention, LaTeX places letters at the correct positions on a white page (good for layout, but bad for semantics and accessibility), - so LaTeX does not set whitespace (like spaces between the words). So if you copy some text from the PDF, you would get one big line ("Wurst" as we say) of words, without the spaces.

\pdfinterwordspaceon tells LaTeX to also typeset the spaces as characters, so that you can properly copy-paste the text from the pdf. This also has a HUGE impact on accessibility - think of a screen reader program having to cope with pages of text that has no spaces between the words!
(Btw. It's a pitty that LaTeX is so poor at accessiblity (sadly, currently MS W**d is much better actually). Improvements coming slowly - which means that LaTeX might die one day due to lack of accessiblity where it is legally required to offer texts in accessible way - like all universities in Europe, afaik.)

Thus, commening out this line is not optimal - we should try to motivate the LaTeX guys to fix the underlying error. It is actually a font problem that only happens on Windows.
See also https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/318425/use-pdfinterwordspaceon-with-pdflatex-from-miktex-on-windows

[p10n]

FYI: I just got the info that this was fixed in MikTeX today - MiKTeX/miktex-packaging#71

[AndyClifton]

Ok, so that means there's probably a need to document this switch in the examples. It may make sense to move it to the preamble for each document, not the style file. But, I would prefer accessibility to be the default...

[p10n]

As of my understanding, the underlying issue in MikTex was fixed completely by evocedoly at MikTex (within a few hours after I had reported it, wow!). I should be able to test it next week (not using MikTex personally).
Thus, you should be able to just go back to your original implementation, maybe after a few days (or weeks) to allow everyone to get the update.
MiKTeX/miktex-packaging#71
I agree it is very preferable to have the best-possible accessibility by default.

[AndyClifton]

Ok, I understand that MikTex has been updated. I've had issues on a Mac with this as well though and I'd like to see if the update you mention applies / helps there, too.Watch this space... Ich melde mich. On 4 Dec 2018 11:05, Philipp <notifications@github.com> wrote:As of my understanding, the underlying issue in MikTex was fixed completely by evocedoly at MikTex (within a few hours after I had reported it, wow!). I should be able to test it next week (not using MikTex personally). Thus, you should be able to just go back to your original implementation, maybe after a few days (or weeks) to allow everyone to get the update. MiKTeX/miktex-packaging#71 I agree it is very preferable to have the best-possible accessibility by default. —You are receiving this because you modified the open/close state.Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.