It's a bit tedious to install, but the toolchain is mostly automatic.
docbook->doc book xsl-> xsl-fo-> pdf
All you reall do is execute the toolchain against the docbook. So, you
don't really need to know xslt, xsl-fo, or pdf.
Well, I have to know something at some point if I am going to change
the page size, which is the whole point of the exercise.
At what point would I make that change? (I won't ask "how" until I
actually have the tools installed.)
Compared to Rexml and PDF::Writer, this is a whole lot simpler. Spend
a couple of hours configuring tools, create a batch file or ant
script, and you are rolling.
OK, that sounds good.
I wonder if there is a need for any of these tools in Ruby? Would
we gain anything or not? I'm asking partly just to stay more
on-topic.
Nicholas Van Weerdenburg <vanweerd@gmail.com> writes:
Interestingly, xsl-fo was the first concept behind xslt
(t=transformations) which is used to mangle xml docs from one format
to another. During the production of "xsl" they need to general
transformations became apparent, so they split xsl into xsl-t
(transformations) and xsl-fo (formatting objects). Now everyone uses
xslt and xsl-fo is languishing in near obscurity, even though it was
the initial impetus behind the whole xsl thing.
This may well be because the only use of a printed XSL-FO spec is to
slay people with it...
Seriously, I think it is the biggest single specification ever
published by the w3c; and not exactly easy to use. No wonder it
doesn't really get popular.
I think a good XML+CSS->PDF processor could do the same stuff and was
far easier to understand and use. But I don't know of such a thing.
It would be WONDERFUL if someone would create a ReadMe that gives
explicit instructions for setting up a minimalist DocBook tool
chain. I've asked for such a thing on the DocBook mailing list
(docbook@lists.oasis-open.org), but nobody there has been willing
or able to come up with one.
Well, point them to the instructions in this thread and they're most
of the way there.
Seriously, though, I remember that when I was getting started with
DocBook someone had written up a document like that, one which covered
things from the DocBook/SGML perspective. He included stuff about an
SGML mode for Emacs, and a lot of the complications that come along
for the ride when you're dealing with SGML processing. In contrast,
I've found that things are remarkably straightforward when dealing
with DocBook/XML. Devin summed it up really well in one of his
previous posts in this thread, there are really just two "tools" that
you'll need to get your hands on (an XSLT processor, and FOP).
···
On 11/12/05, Rich Morin <rdm@cfcl.com> wrote:
It would be WONDERFUL if someone would create a ReadMe that gives
explicit instructions for setting up a minimalist DocBook tool
chain.
