Re: DOCBOOK-APPS: FOP as PDF processor for DocBook

[Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>]

/ Aidan Mark Humphreys <ahumphreys@procoma.de> was heard to say:
| Has anyone experience of using FOP to render DocBook conformant documents to
| PDF using Norman's stylesheets?

Not with great success, although I do try occasionally.

| Using the supplied file book.xml I manage to obtain a PDF. However when I
| insert a simple informaltable into the file:
| 
|      <informaltable frame="all">
|        <tgroup cols="4">
|          <thead>

Try adding <colspec/>s that provide an explicit width for each column.
I think FOP table formatting is still under development.

| Rending the file book2.xml issues multiple Warning messages
| 
| WARNING: current implementation of tables requires a table-column for each
| column, indicating column-width

Right.

|  and finally terminates abnormally with the following message:
| 
| FATAL ERROR: list-item-label must have exactly one block in this version of
| FOP.

Apparently, I've screwed up somewhere and there's at least one place
where I produce invalid list item labels. MURAKAMI Shinyu sent me some
really good analysis of this problem and I'll be fixing things for
1.29 sometime next week (hopefully).

| Are there avoiding actions one can take to work around at least the table
| problem ?

I think setting the table widths will help there.

| Is there an older release of the stylesheets using less FO
| features or can the stylesheets be "simplified" to avoid some of these
| issues?

No, I don't think so.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>      | Nature is amoral, not immoral.
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | [It] existed for eons before we
Chair, DocBook Technical Committee | arrived, didn't know we were
                                   | coming, and doesn't give a damn
                                   | about us.--Stephen J. Gould