DOCBOOK-APPS: Re: PassiveTex improvement project

[Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>]

/ Bob Stayton <bobs@caldera.com> was heard to say:
| Do you use PassiveTex, and do you have suggestions
| for things that need fixing in it?

Table support is the most commonly reported problem. I'm inclined to
think that the "best" way to fix this problem would be an extension
function that converted FO tables into something TeX was better able
to format. (I was talking to David Carlisle about this last night.)

Basically, it's hard for TeX to look far enough ahead to really get
all the spans and borders right. An extension that could do this and
produce something that told TeX more about the table "up front" would
help.

Of course, it'd have to be programmed both at the XML level (as either
a pre-processor or a real XSLT extension function) and at the
PassiveTeX level, so it's no small task.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>      | Men are not sufficiently perfect
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | to exercise justice in the name of
Chair, DocBook Technical Committee | virtue: the rule of life should be
                                   | indulgence and kindness of
                                   | heart.--Anatole France