Anyone who spends a lot of time working with the Adobe PDF format knows how painful the process can be. This is doubly true when trying to automatically convert documents and webpages to PDF. The PDF generator for the Adafruit Learning System has, for years, been unreliable and buggy. We have kept the PDF generator from breaking with lots of duct tape and bubble gum, but eventually we ran out of bubble gum. So, we decided to do a complete overhaul of the PDF generator.
Many of you may wonder why anyone would even want a PDF version of a Learn guide. There are many niche reasons to use the PDF version, but the vast majority of those who use the PDF version of guides are educators who load them on tablets without internet access for children to use. This also meant when PDFs were broken, it was especially disruptive to those who needed them for an upcoming class.
The good news is, not only did we fix many of the issues, but PDF’s are much cleaner and more compact. They should be easier to read and we should have far fewer bugs (these are still PDFs, so we expect plenty of bug fixes in the future, but it should be less).
The new PDF generator should be launched very soon, so keep an eye out for it if this update is for you!
Well, we are happy to report that this feature has been released. Head on over to ALS and give it a try. Please let us know if you find any issues or bugs!
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: CircuitPython 8.1.0 and 8.2.0-beta0 out and so much more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi