Re: [docbook-apps] How to modify bibliography spacing in biblio.xsl?

[Marc Baaden <baaden@smplinux.de>]

Bob,

thank you for your insight.

You were actually right, it was not biblio.xsl that was controlling the
spacing, but the specific bibliography files I was using, called refdb,
which did work on a copy of biblio.xsl. Modifying and importing the refdb
xsl file did work finally.

While fixing this, I also went through the fo output and checked the
different nested blocks. It appeared to me that the number of spacing
elements and their nesting is quite confusing. Is there some
general logic behind how spacing is dealt with in docbook? (What I found
particularly confusing is that for a given element, eg a title, you can
have several spacing elements from different blocks that add up to the final
observed spacing.. if you now want to increase/decrease the spacing around
this title, how does one rationalize which elements to modify?

Thanks again,
Marc

>>> "Bob Stayton" said:
 >> The import should work, however, those setting may not actually be 
 >> controlling the final spacing.  You can test the import by adding an 
 >> xsl:message to your version of the template and see if you get that message
      
 >> during processing.
 >> 
 >> I think the 'bibliography.titlepage' template is generating a nested 
 >> fo:block that has additional spacing.  You might temporarily set 
 >> <xsl:output indent="yes"/> in your customization (to make it more readable)
      
 >> and peek inside your fo output and see what the nesting of fo:blocks looks 
 >> like.
 >> 
 >> The bibliography.titlepage template is generated from the titlepage spec 
 >> file titlepage.templates.xml using the process described here:
 >> 
 >> http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/HTMLTitlePage.html
 >> 
 >> If you look in the spec file, you will see that the title for bibliography 
 >> calls the component.title template, which is defined in fo/component.xsl. 
 >> There you will see how the additional spacing is being added through other 
 >> attribute sets.
 >> 
 >> If you want better control, then don't use the component.title template in 
 >> your titlepage spec file, because it is also used for chapters, appendices,
      
 >> etc.  Instead, put all your font and spacing specifications in the spec 
 >> file and regenerate the titlepage XSL that you import into your 
 >> customization.
 >> 
 >> Bob Stayton
 >> Sagehill Enterprises
 >> DocBook Consulting
 >> bobs@sagehill.net
-- 
 Dr. Marc Baaden  - Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique, Paris
 mailto:baaden@smplinux.de      -      http://www.baaden.ibpc.fr
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