Docbook XML to PDF convertion

[Hugo Cisneiros]

Tommy Reynolds wrote:
>>Since I'll release the book freely, I will need a PDF version for 
>>distribuition, since many people will like to print it. The 
>>Documentation Guide says that PDF generation is somewhat broken :(
> 
> Yes, PDF production is broken in at least two ways.
> 
> The first is the easier to correct.  The stylesheets used for the PDF
> generation need much care and feeding.  Largely been ignored because
> of item #2:
> 
> The passivetex back-end we use for PDF generation is obsolete and
> simply not up to the task for anything much more than some small
> documents.  Passivetex isn't maintained anymore, so there is bit rot
> as well.

Other than FOP, is there other alternativa? I have looked in the Docbook 
page, and found this list:

http://sagehill.net/docbookxsl/FOprocessors.html

The most of them are commercial, but I noted the free 'xmlroff'. Do you 
know it? I don't :)

> Using Apache FOP for PDF rendering is currently our best bet, but it
> needs some non-free components, such as graphics rendering, so FOP in
> its current state isn't an option for FDP.  The situation may change but
> that's how it is now.

I'll begin to test with your package. Right now I can't because here at 
work I only have internet access throught a proxy, and it appears that 
the program is trying to access something while I "make pdf":

===
[ERROR] property - "background-position-horizontal" is not implemented yet.
[ERROR] property - "background-position-vertical" is not implemented yet.
Error creating background image: Error while recovering Image 
Informations (http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/images/draft.png) : 
null
[ERROR] property - "background-position-horizontal" is not implemented yet.
[ERROR] property - "background-position-vertical" is not implemented yet.
Error creating background image: Error while recovering Image 
Informations (http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/images/draft.png) : 
null

(infinite loop...)
===

So when at home I'll try again.
Right now I'm trying to study how the xsl stylesheets work and trying to 
get things fixed in the current method :(

>>Some tips? Advices? Tutorials on changing and customizing the xsl 
>>stylesheets? :)
> 
> Customizing the XSL stylesheets can be deep magic. If you have a
> basic understanding of XSL, then I'd suggest modification by
> experimentation.  Just turn the knob and see what it adjusts.

Studying and doing that :)

> Keep your customizations to the file "docs-common/xsl/main-pdf.xsl",
> or to a file directly imported from there.  The deeper an file is
> nested, the less precedence it has and in the event of conflicting
> settings the one with the greater precedence wins.
>  
> Still game?

Well since I need to do it, I'm going to try hard on that. Thanks for 
the tips!

-- 
[]'s
Eitch

http://www.devin.com.br/eitch/
"Talk is cheap. Show me the code." - Linus Torvalds