Re: DOCBOOK: Two columns

[Bob Stayton <bobs@caldera.com>]

On Thu, Oct 17, 2002 at 08:25:13AM -0700, Marcio de Oliveira Buss wrote:
> Bob Stayton wrote:
> > 
> > On Wed, Oct 16, 2002 at 09:26:30PM -0700, Marcio de Oliveira Buss wrote:
> > >
> > > Folks,
> > >
> > > I am trying to write a technical paper using docbook.
> > > How can I switch between one column text and two
> > > columns text, in the same way Latex does this?
> > 
> > Are you using the jade/DSSSL tools, or the XSL tools?
> 
> I am using XSL stylesheets (xsltproc from Red Hat 7.3 and
> xsl-stylesheets from /usr/share/sgml/docbook/xsl-stylesheets).

Currently DocBook XSL has limited capabilities for
switching between one column and two.  Generally it is
achieved by using a two-column page master, and then
creating an fo:block with the property span="all" to span
that block across all the columns.

You can turn on two-column page masters in the current version
by setting any of these parameters to "2":

<xsl:param name="column.count.titlepage" select="1"/>
<xsl:param name="column.count.lot" select="1"/>
<xsl:param name="column.count.front" select="1"/>
<xsl:param name="column.count.body" select="1"/>
<xsl:param name="column.count.back" select="1"/>
<xsl:param name="column.count.index" select="2"/>


The span property is used twice in the stylesheets.
The first is the index title.
The index is by default two-column, so a span is used
on the title of the index.  That's done by setting
'param:pagewide="1"' on the index title for recto
pages in fo/titlepage.templates.xml.  The 'pagewide'
parameter is used in the 'component.title' template
in fo/component.xsl.  So that parameter can be used
on any element listed in titlepage.templates.xsl
as using the template 'component.title', such as
chapter, appendix, article, glossary, etc.

But that's just the title. The pagewide parameter won't
have any effect on other elements.

The second use of span is in table and informaltable.
If the table's 'pgwide' attribute is set to '1', then
the table will be put in a block that has the
span="all" property.

Since figure and informalfigure permit the 'pgwide'
attribute, the stylesheet should probably support
this property there too.

So you can see that if you want any other
switching between one and two columns, some
customization to get span="all" into the appropriate
fo:blocks is required.  
-- 

Bob Stayton                                 400 Encinal Street
Publications Architect                      Santa Cruz, CA  95060
Technical Publications                      voice: (831) 427-7796
Caldera International, Inc.                 fax:   (831) 429-1887
                                            email: bobs@caldera.com