1 . Introduction

ekdosis is a LuaLaTeX package designed for producing multilingual critical editions.

2 . License and disclamer

Copyright ⓒ 2020 Robert Alessi
Please send error reports and suggestions for improvements to Robert Alessi:

• email: alessi@robertalessi.net
• website: http://www.robertalessi.net/ekdosis
• development: http://git.robertalessi.net/ekdosis
• comments, feature requests, bug reports: https://gitlab.com/ralessi/ekdos...
• mailing list, support: http://www.robertalessi.net/mail... (mailing list archives)

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

3 . CTAN, Documentation

ekdosis is available at the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (http://ctan.org). It is also included in TeXLive. You will find on CTAN a comprehensive documentation of ekdosis.

• url: http://ctan.org/pkg/ekdosis
• comprehensive documentation

4 . Installation, Development, Git Repository

Installation

ekdosis is part of TeXLive, so you should use your TeX package manager to download and install it on your system. It is also possible to download ekdosis from its main git repository. For instructions on how to do that:

1. Browse the code (see below), choose the release you wish to install (see "Tag" section), and download it.
2. Read the instructions on git.robertalessi.net/ekdosis/about.

Browse the code

You can browse ekdosis repository on the web:

• url: http://git.robertalessi.net/ekdosis

Comments, Feature Requests, Bug Reports

• url: https://gitlab.com/ralessi/ekdos...

Download the repository

ekdosis development is facilitated by git, a distributed version control system. You will need to install git (most GNU/Linux distributions package it in their repositories).
Use this command to download the repository:
git clone http://git.robertalessi.net/ekdosis
A new directory named ekdosis will have been created, containing ekdosis.

Git hosting

Make an account on https://gitlab.com and navigate (while logged in) to https://gitlab.com/ralessi/ekdosis. Click Fork and you will have in your account your own repository of ekdosis where you will be able to make whatever changes you like to.

5 . Features

Typesetting in any writing direction accepted by LuaTeX. ekdosis is particularly suitable for editing text written in Arabic or other semitic languages.

Apparatus Criticus

1. Edited texts can receive multiple layers of apparatus in any writing direction (either left-to-right or right-to-left). Running paragraphs of text can be arranged in any number of columns.
2. Critical notes and comments can be placed at the bottom of pages or in the margins or at the end of chapters.

Texts, Translations, Parallel Redactions, Borrowings, Commentaries

1. Texts can be arranged on continuous pages or on facing pages.
2. Alignment: columns of text can be synchronized or not.
3. Any number of columns is accepted on pages, regardless of the number of columns of text that is set on facing pages.

6 . Poetry, Images, Technical Literature

ekdosis accepts lines of poetry. Arabic poetry typeset with the help of arabluatex is also accepted, along with insertion of images and diagrams in the edition text.

7 . TEI xml

Witnesses are to be declared in the .tex source file. Once that is done, they can be used in the optional arguments of commands designed to build the apparatus criticus, like so:—

I met
  \app{
    \lem[wit=A]{John}
    \rdg[wit=B]{Peter}
  } at the station yersterday.

This ensures a robust conversion to TEI xml; declared witnesses are encoded within witness elements in the TEI xml header. Therefore, ekdosis is able to produce at the same time editions in print with the benefit of LaTeX as a typesetting system, and online searchable editions.

Word indexing is also supported.

Finally, database-driven encoding under LaTeX will allow extraction of data and textual comparison. For instance, from the example provided above, it will be possible to display or to print either the text of manuscript A:
I met John at the station yesterday
or the one of manuscript B:
I met Peter at the station yesterday

Multilingual Editions, Parallel Redactions

Texts are entered with ekdosis segment by segment. For example, to one segment corresponding to the base text, another is attached to its translation, yet another to some borrowing or parallel redaction. Types of borrowing can be further characterized by TEI xml compliant annotations.

Teamwork

Every segment can be assigned to a responsible person, thus making anyone able to extract from the database segments he is accountable for.

8 . Literature

1. Slides: Workshop on Digital Humanities to Preserve Knowledge and Cultural Heritage (Stanford, avr. 2019 — Programme).
2. DHK 2019 Conference paper (university of Stanford), submitted to JDMDH, Special Issue on Collecting, Preserving, and Disseminating Endangered Cultural Heritage for New Understandings through Multilingual Approaches.