discuss: My PDF output of my Howto document is suboptimal
Subject:
Re: [discuss] My PDF output of my Howto document is suboptimal
From:
"Omari Norman" ####@####.####
Date:
2 Mar 2006 16:08:24 -0000
Message-Id: <b4b77f3a0603020808x4360a00esdda915184952070f@mail.gmail.com>
I like DocBook. Unfortunately the tools to get it into PDF seem
suboptimal. Further, it seems to me there is a lot of puzzling and/or
bad information floating around out there.
For instance, there is a jw script out there that provides a bunch of
sgml conversion scripts (such as docbook2pdf, docbook2html, and so
on.) The documentation for it says that the scripts only work on sgml,
and not on xml. Why would this be? My understanding was that xml *is*
SGML, so why wouldn't an SGML tool work on xml? My only guess is that
it has something to do with SGML vs XML catalogs...
Never mind that though. Despite what the docs say, I've never had any
problem getting the jw scripts to work with DocBook XML. At least, not
on SUSE.
Then I switched to Gentoo, and a lot of SGML stuff was broken on my
Gentoo box. So I read ESR's piece on Docbook:
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/html_single/DocBook-Demystification-HOWTO/
and he says that SGML and DSSSL are out of fashion now. It's a creaky
toolchain, he said. Use FOP. Fine, I said. The latest stable Gentoo
xsltproc package had a bug, so I had to downgrade it, but now it works
fine in conjunction with Apache FOP. I've got a script on here:
http://www.smileystation.com/win-linux-howto
that I use to make the file in a bunch of different formats and upload it.
NOW, I learn that TLDP doesn't use DSSSL or FOP to make PDFs and that,
instead, it uses HTMLDOC from Easy Software Products! This is the
first I've heard of htmldoc at all. This might also explain why the
TLDP PDF stylesheets seem unfinished to me--for instance there is no
decent "warning" box that has been implemented. I could also tell that
many of the current books on TLDP (eg Tillie's books, and the Bash
Advanced Scripting Guide) are NOT using the stylesheet that I got--and
I don't remember where I even got that stylesheet, though it said it's
a TLDP stylesheet. I didn't find it on TLDP's pages--I found it on
Google.
Judging from the Gentoo forums and from this list, it is very common
for people to have torturous experiences of trying to get PDFs out of
DocBook. There's various docs scattered around, but nothing
authoritative.
Is there some sort of current TLDP guidance on DocBook XML and PDF
that I have missed? What exactly is done to get TLDP docs into
DocBook? Is it different for SGML Docbook and XML Docbook?
On 3/2/06, Chris Karakas ####@####.#### wrote:
>
> ####@####.#### schrieb am 01.03.06 21:00:19:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'm testing my nearly done version of the next issue of the BogoMips
> > mini-Howto (at last a new one), now in full blown DocBook XML. Runs with
> > FOP to create a PDF file does give a readable file, but the layout is
> > terrible: all one long text without useful pagination (e.g., per section
> > start), huge letters for section and subsection titles, mixture of serif
> > and non-serif fonts. And I get a lot of messages about
> > background-position and other warnings.
> >
>
> I've heard horror stories about PDF and FOP, back in 2000 and as current as 2005.
>
> Meanwhile, I've been producing high quality PDFs all these years, with good ol' SGML, openjade, pdfjadetex, TeX - and LyX! :-)
>
> So, if you want an optimal PDF, look here:
>
> http://www.karakas-online.de/mySGML/explain-optimal-pdf.html
>
> --
> Regards
>
> Chris Karakas
> http://www.karakas-online.de
>
> ______________________
> http://lists.tldp.org/
>
>
--
Omari -- Does not supply iodide, a necessary nutrient.
