Re: [xep-support] cover pages front and back

[Elliotte Harold <elharo@metalab.unc.edu>]

Bob Stayton wrote:
> Hello,
> The DocBook XSL stylesheets currently don't provide direct support for 
> covers, only front title pages.  Covers can come in a variety of 
> configurations, such as single-sheet for front and back, wrap-around 
> with spine, or wrap-around without spine for saddle stitch.  Text 
> placement and graphics are highly individual, so it is hard to write a 
> general-purpose stylesheet for all possible designs.  Also, cover 
> PDFs are often produced separately because their production process 
> (color, heavier stock) may differ from the process for the book block.
>  

While I agree with all that, it would still be very useful if there were 
some way to automatically stitch a cover provided from another source 
together with the DocBook XSL output; ideally without mucking up the 
page counts either. I.e. assume I have one of these:

1. A PDF or other graphic wrap around cover generated from another program
2. Separate graphic covers fro front and back and spine
3. An XML source document along with my own stylesheet to generate the 
covers in XSL-FO


Given one of those three inputs, would it be possible to somehow 
parameterize the DocBook XSL stylesheets so it could add extra pages for 
the front and back covers and pull in the external PDF (or GIF/PNG/etc.) 
  to make "covers" in the PDF?

I know we can;t do that now, but would this much be hard to add?

Also is there any sort of de facto standard for where the covers appear 
in pure PDF? e.g. if I buy a Pragmatics or O'Reilly or APress eBook, are 
the covers in the PDF I buy and if so where?

 From a quick scan of the few such PDF books I have handy, it seems the 
front cover is included as a graphic on the first page. The back cover 
and spine are not included.

If nothing else, this is actually quite useful for Finder previews in 
Mac OS X.

-- 
Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo@metalab.unc.edu
Java I/O 2nd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeaulait.org/books/javaio2/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596527500/ref=nosim/cafeaulaitA/