Re: [docbook-apps] Controlling page breaks in pdf

[Jens Stavnstrup <js@ddre.dk>]

Gurra,

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004, Gurra Green wrote:

> Hello!
>
> I'm setting up an environment for creating user guides for a product at my
> company, switching from FrameMaker to DocBook. Unevitably, all (the few)
> good sides of FM are compared by my co-writers/fellow content authors
> whenever FM has a benefit. After all, the switch in work procedure is rather
> big.
>
> This means that I have to point-mark a number of issues of the type "in
> FrameMaker I could do this, why can I not do this with DocBook? DocBook must
> be crap" (however, the resistance has been lower than I expected, much
> because FM is not a simple tool for the casual author either).
>
> One of my current issues is controlling the way paragraphs are handled in
> relation to page breaks. In most cases it works fine as is, but for example
> I have a book with a section in a chapter, and the section starts with one
> header, one two-line sentence ending with a colon (:) and then an unordered
> list. I get a page break after the colon, before the first bullet. This has
> been considered Bad by the output jury.
>
> I see two solutions; either insert a manual page break for the section,
> getting the header on top of the next side (but the <beginpage> did not do
> that as I discovered) or use some other mechanism to make the short
> paragraph stay with the bullet list and I expect the section header to
> follow the paragraph over to the next page in that case.
>


The pagebreak element is only markup, indication, that we need a
pagebreak here. You have to tell the fo processor, that you actually
wan't such a break.

One way to do this is using the following template:

<xsl:template match="beginpage">
  <fo:block break-after="page"/>
</xsl:template>



Regards,

Jens


> What is the list's opinions on this problem?
>
> I use xsltproc/XEP to produce my pdf, docbook 4.2 and a thin customization
> layer with mostly parameter settings.
>
> Best regards,
>   G
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> It's fast, it's easy and it's free. Get MSN Messenger today!
> http://www.msn.co.uk/messenger
>
>
>