DOCBOOK-APPS: Producing Printable output from docbook... neverendingstory, this time: DSSSL

[Alexander Schatten <alasan@gmx.net>]

I dont know how frustrated others might be, but I am definitly. docbook 
seems to be very promising, but makes so many problems in nearly each 
detail.

I managed to produce html output, even with images, but try to make 
printable (PDF) output.

(1) as I am used to xsl, I tried the way using the Walsh xsl 
stylesheets, xslt, and fo.

this basically works with the very expensice xep, but not with apache 
FOP (has too many bugs yet).

(2) o.k. now I thought I try the DSSSL stylesheets and Jade:

I installed jade, works with the jtest.sgm and produces correct jtest.rtf.

but when I try to test the Walsh DSSSL stylesheets with the test.sgm I 
receive:

__________________________________________________________________________
nsgmls:I: SP version "1.3.3"
nsgmls:test.sgm:1:61:W: cannot generate system identifier for public 
text "-//Da
venport//DTD DocBook V3.0//EN"
nsgmls:test.sgm:1:61:E: reference to entity "CHAPTER" for which no 
system identi
fier could be generated
nsgmls:test.sgm:1:0: entity was defined here
nsgmls:test.sgm:1:61:E: DTD did not contain element declaration for 
document typ
e name
nsgmls:test.sgm:2:8:E: element "CHAPTER" undefined
nsgmls:test.sgm:2:15:E: element "TITLE" undefined
nsgmls:test.sgm:3:5:E: element "PARA" undefined
__________________________________________________________________________

???

when I try Jade with DSSSL stylesheets on my docbook document I receive 
tons of errors like:

__________________________________________________________________________
jade:D:\Programme\JavaTools\jakarta-tomcat\webapps\cocoon\docbook\docbook_dtd\en
t/iso-lat2.ent:116:18:E: "X0175" is not a function name
jade:D:\Programme\JavaTools\jakarta-tomcat\webapps\cocoon\docbook\docbook_dtd\en
t/iso-lat2.ent:117:18:E: "X0174" is not a function name
jade:D:\Programme\JavaTools\jakarta-tomcat\webapps\cocoon\docbook\docbook_dtd\en
t/iso-lat2.ent:118:18:E: "X0177" is not a function name
__________________________________________________________________________


o.k. I am really no DSSSL expert, not even a rookie, but what I do not 
understand is, why it must be so difficult to install the DSSSL 
stylesheets?? there are two remarks in the Walsh documentation that 
could fit to the problems:


(1)"If the nsgmls command produces errors, review your catalog and 
resolve the errors"

??? I have no idea about how to resolve the errors in the catalog file...

(2) "If you are missing some of the ISO entity sets, they are available 
on the web at ... "

following the link I find a huge page with again tons of links and 
detail information about SGML/XML entities, where I have no idea where 
to start...


so finally my real question: Am *I* too stupid to install this stuff, or 
is it really necessary to be an DSSSL expert to perform this task?


any ideas?


thank you


Alex