RE: [docbook-apps] Re: [docbook] Using an image on the titlepage

["Mauritz Jeanson" <mj@johanneberg.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul A. Hoadley 
> 
> You're absolutely right---there's no image on the title page using the
> simple construction:
> 
> <fo:block>
>   <fo:external-image .../>
> </fo:block>
> 
> I can see the template gets executed, but the external-image element
> never makes it to the FO output.  Setting up the title-page as a
> table, as in Bob's book, works.
> 
> Can anyone explain this?


Yes, the block must have some text content. One way to get around that is to
put a zero-width space (for example) in your customization layer:

<xsl:template name="book.titlepage.recto">
  <fo:block>&#8203;  <!-- makes block "non-empty" -->
     <fo:external-graphic src="url(...)"/>
   </fo:block>
</xsl:template>

This is needed because the template with name="book.titlepage" in
titlepage.templates.xsl contains the following test:

<xsl:if test="normalize-space($recto.content) != ''">
  <fo:block><xsl:copy-of select="$recto.content"/></fo:block>
</xsl:if>

Without any non-whitespace text nodes, normalize-space() returns an empty
string. 

/MJ