Re: [docbook-apps] Generate pdf from a Docbook 5

[Brett Leber <bleber+@cs.cmu.edu>]

On 8/23/2007 10:22 AM, fips wrote:
> Now I am looking for an explanation how to transform my document to pdf.
> 
> a) which files and tool do I need?
> c) which process my files have to go through?

I am using Apache FOP 0.93, together with the DocBook 5 namespace-aware 
stylesheets and xsltproc (an xslt processor), to transform DocBook 5 XML 
to PDF. To do this, you will need the DocBook stylesheets 
(docbook-xsl-ns-1.73.1 is the most recent release) [1], Apache FOP [2], 
and an XSLT engine [3].

My process for transforming is:

1. Transform DocBook 5 XML to XSL-FO, the interim format needed for a 
transformation to PDF, using xsltproc and the DocBook FO stylesheets. (I 
have a customization layer stuck in here, but that you will only need 
when you are customizing the output.)
2. Transform the FO file to PDF using Apache FOP.

To get these tools set up, see Bob Stayton's topic on this from his 
excellent book:
http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/ToolsSetup.html

Brett

[1] http://docbook.sf.net/files/xsl-ns/latest
[2] http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/download.html
[3] http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/InstallingAProcessor.html