Actually, HTML is nearly there. I tried to replicate one of my ACM-style LaTeX papers into HTML and convert it to pdf via browser. Biggest problem: position the copyright box on the first page, left column, bottom and flow the text around it. There are minor problems with browsers (e.g. Chrome does not support column-count CSS in print output), but hopefully that will improve over time.
I did not tackle the bibliography problem: Import bibtex into HTML and correctly link citations into bibliography. That will be some work.
Maybe PrinceXML can do it, but it is not Free Software.
Comments
Actually, HTML is nearly there. I tried to replicate one of my ACM-style LaTeX papers into HTML and convert it to pdf via browser. Biggest problem: position the copyright box on the first page, left column, bottom and flow the text around it. There are minor problems with browsers (e.g. Chrome does not support column-count CSS in print output), but hopefully that will improve over time.
I did not tackle the bibliography problem: Import bibtex into HTML and correctly link citations into bibliography. That will be some work.
Maybe PrinceXML can do it, but it is not Free Software.
My proof-of-concept HTML version: http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/acm_html/test.html You can spot a few LaTeX commands, which got copy&pasted. ;)
My conclusion: HTML is useable for pdf generation, but is not sufficient to replace LaTeX.