Docbook XML to PDF convertion
Hugo Cisneiros
hugo at devin.com.br
Wed Jan 25 14:12:38 UTC 2006
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 The passivetex back-end we use for PDF generation is obsolete and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
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