Re: [docbook-apps] pdf output

[Jason Lewis <jason@dickson.st>]

Hi John,

Thanks for your reply.

> There are several problems using both FOP and PassiveTeX for PDF 
> formatting of Docbook. Using either tool will result in some odd format 
> errors, depending on what you're formatting. My experience is that if 
> you have simple needs, and relatively short documents, then FOP will 
> suffice. However, if you are prepared to work around some of 
> PassiveTex's formatting issues (by modifying the XSL, the PassiveTeX 
> macros, or the Docbook source) then a much better-looking output file 
> will result. Personally, although I've had to work around a lot of 
> issues with PassiveTeX, I much prefer its output to that of FOP. Over 
> time, that opinion may change as FOP becomes a better product.

Thanks for the tips. I'll give both a go. I was really looking for a more out 
of the box approach though. Is there somewhere one can find a list of the 
shortcommings and perhaps workarounds for them?

> 
> When formatting tables, it's helpful to know that cell and row spanning 
> don't work so well in PassiveTeX, and neither do relative column widths. 
> Simple tables, however, can be fairly easily accomplished, by not using 
> spans, and by specifying absolute table widths. If you have border 
> issues, then those can be worked around too, with a little trickery. 
> Here is an example of a simple table in one of the PDF documents that my 
> organization produces:
> 
One of the problems I had with the PassiveTex output was that the left and 
right frame borders were always blank. Is there a work around for that?

Thanks for the example. I'll give it a go.

  > It should also be noted that it is possible to avoid the use of tables
> for many cases in FO-generated output, as FO provides several other 
> formatting options for cases that would require a table in HTML, so you 
> may want to investigate using FO block-level formatting (of things such 
> as variablelist for example) to see if that would meet your needs in 
> this case.

One of the things I want to do is have a block of text on the left, and an 
image on the right of the page.

ie.....


-------------------------------------------------
|                               |                |
|                               |                |
|             Text here         |  image here    |
|                               |                |
|                               |                |
|-------------------------------|----------------|

I tried to do it didn't really work with the PassiveTex PDF output.

Can acheive the same thing without the use of tables?

Thanks for your advice,

Jason

-- 



Jason Lewis
-------------------------------------------------
please note my new email address jason@dickson.st