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Subject: Re: DOCBOOK: General roadmap questions
I am really new to Docbook/DSSL (one year or so), but I would like to share my experience with Wolfgan Laung. - I used to hate Emacs. Recently, I have concluded that if you expend some time studying it, it's a really nice environment for SGML when using in conjunction with PSGML and some extra dictionary if you need it, as it was my case. Also, you can (or should?) make some adjust in the default configuration in order to make it easier to your staff (keyboard, etc...). It's nice that you have the option to insert only those Elements or tags (or end-tags) which are allowed in a particular context. No need to worry if it is right or no. The same for Attributes. If you think <cite>(The emacs SGML mode may even be sufficient for most of our tecchies.)</cite> you can stick to Emacs (IMHO). - The though question: Rendering. Until now I use rtf, although I have done some test with "Jade -tex" for dvi an ps files. My preference for rtf is due to the way we used to elaborate the documentation in the past (partially, also in the present). But my goal is to migrate to a "only-ps-and-pdf" solution, using Acrobat Distiller to generate the pdf files. For what I have seen, Jade and Latex works quite well in producing dvi files (the best: tables), but I may be wrong here (not enough experience). Also, I think you can achieve some degree of cutomization for headers and footers modifying some DSSSL files and creating you own rules. But for what I have read in this list and in the docbook-apps list, you can't expect the same as you could do whit FrameMaker, Page Maker or the like. Anyway, my thought about it is "you can't have all". I needed to sacrifice some particular page designs in order to get better content (which, by the way, is the goal with all this stuff). - About "scheme": Fine if you need query retrieval of your docs and post publishing of the results. But for me: too much programming languages. I do prefer to use perl, which I also use to actively update the docs and pages in my intranet. The other tool I use is Microsoft ODBC driver. I don't know if I will be able to go on just with only those tools. - As you can see, almost all free. Regards, Juan R. Migoya Wolfgang Laun wrote: > Hello Group, > > Our situation: ~60 engineers, UNIX/Solaris for SW development, > Personal workstations running NT and (a few, but growing) Linux. > > During past years we've been using Digital Runoff, DecWrite, Interleaf > and now MS-Word for technical documentation, and things have not really > improved. For instance, automatic generation of documents has not been > made easier, and only a few doc's written in LaTeX have lasted over the > years without conversion. > > Recently I've come across the DocBook, and I think SGML/XML would be an > excellent choice for (at least) our generated documents. If we can > give something to the WISYWIG adepts, we might even get rid of MS-Word. > (The emacs SGML mode may even be sufficient for most of our tecchies.) > > Now my questions: > - What would be the best way for producing hardcopy? (I understand that > rtf is an out-of-the-box result of applying jade, but what's the best > way (w/o starting MS-Word) of getting PostScript from that? > Star Office (with a simple example) works OK, but we need to do this > from > a script, in the background. Is TeX the best way? Is there a way via > rtf to pdf/Acrobat?) > > - For hardcopy, we'll have to modify the stylesheets to include our > custom page headers and footers. (Is that correct?) Generally: Is > DSSSL ("never achieved widespread use") the best bet, or should we > rather use CSS? XSL?? > > - Scheme: Are there any substantial differences to (e)lisp? I haven't > found > any documentation on Scheme (but I admit I didn't try hard). > > - It doesn't all have to be free. We're also investigating commercial > products. Any experiences? > > Thank you, > -Wolfgang
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