16.2 Approach
As with the previous project, this application works in these two distinct parts:
Compute the statistics and create the diagram files.
Create a report file in a simplified markup language from a template with the details interpolated. A tool like Jinja is very helpful for this.
Once the report file in a markup language — like Markdown or RST — is available, then a tool like Pandoc can be used to create an HTML page or a PDF document from the markup file. Using a tool like Pandoc permits quite a bit of flexibility in choosing the final format. It also allows the insertion of style sheets and page templates in a tidy, uniform way.
The LaTeX language as markup provides the most comprehensive capabilities. It is challenging to work with, however. Languages like Markdown and RST are designed to offer fewer, easier-to-use capabilities.
This book is written with LaTeX.
We’ll look at three aspects of this application: the statistical computations...