discuss: My PDF output of my Howto document is suboptimal

"Omari Norman" ####@####.#### schrieb am 02.03.06 17:08:38:
> 
> I like DocBook. Unfortunately the tools to get it into PDF seem
> suboptimal. 

I've cursed the tools a lot of times too. However, we must admit it, it's the other side of the "UNIX philosophy". You get a lot of small, independent tools, written by independent authors, with no (or not much) integration in mind. You have to combine them all right. And poor you,  if you make even one small mistake. It's *your* problem. And the solution lies in some buried environment variable that happens to be unset...

See

http://www.karakas-online.de/myJade/

for my first steps with these tools. So I've been burned too. But I found (or should say created? :shock:) my Holy Grail:

http://www.karakas-online.de/mySGML/

> 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...
> 

XML started as a subset of SGML. But it evolved. So it is "almost" a pure subset - but not exact. There are differences, but are quite technical. For the practical side of migrating SGML to XML, see the TEI document here:

http://www.tei-c.org/Activities/MI/miw03.xml?style=printable

> and he says that SGML and DSSSL are out of fashion now. It's a creaky
> toolchain, he said. Use FOP.

And I say: till you get with FOP the quality for PDF that I get *now* with SGML,  another 5 years will pass...and even then I doubt...

It's pdfjadetex, you know, which uses TeX - and you can't beat TeX in print quality. See it here:

http://www.karakas-online.de/gnu-linux-tools-summary/gnu-linux-tools-summary.pdf

Go do that with FOP, or HTMLdoc.

> 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. 

Oh, believe me, I was astonished to read it too! OMG...

If you run into a problem compliling the latest 1.9.x HTMLdoc, look here for the solution:

http://www.karakas-online.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4194

If you look for a free binary of HTMLdoc for Windows, get 1.8.24 from here:

http://users.tpg.com.au/naffall/htmldoc.html

And yes, I searched for these, *after* I learned the above fact, downloaded the software, solved the problems, wrote about them on my Forum and present you now the solutions, so that you don't spend another day of your life correcting compiler errors or searching for a free binary of HTMLdoc...

So smile, the world is good, as Linus says. :-)))


> 
> 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?
> 

Well, I'll say it so often, until everybody gets the message: I found my cure with LyX and SGML:

http://www.karakas-online.de/mySGML/

But anyway, even though I am not directly concerned, like you, me too is very curious to see the answer to this question of yours. :D

-- 
Regards

Chris Karakas
http://www.karakas-online.de