Re: [docbook-apps] Wanted: To hire a DocBook consultant or LaTeX macro developer

[Bruce D'Arcus <bdarcus.lists@gmail.com>]

On 11/23/05, Nancy Blachman <nancy@googleguide.com> wrote:

> Please email me if you are or know of a DocBook consultant or LaTeX
> macro developer who may be interested and available to assist me in
> producing a book and a website from text that I'm writing.

Hi Nancy.  I'm not a consultant, but do have a thing or two to say
about this as advice.

Since you want single source for multiple output, I think DocBook is
definitely superior to LaTeX.

Where TeX (note I am talking broader than LaTeX; there is also the
excellent ConTeXt macro package) really shines is in producing
high-quality print and PDF.  You might do well to see if there's a way
that in hiring someone to generate output via this route, it also
contributes to the open source offerings around this option, because
this is still a rather unsolved problem.

What you may end up needing is skills in both XSLT and in LaTeX or
ConTeXt macro writiing.  E.g. convert the DocBook source to TeX, and
then do some formatting magic on that end to get the desired result. 
There's been talk about this sort of thing on the ConTeXt list over
the past few months, and ConTeXt also has a built-in FO processor. 
I've not used it much, but I think Mike Smith has some experience with
it.

Bruce