RE: [docbook-apps] Page breaks at chapters

Bob,

Many thanks!

In the meantime I also managed to get your other suggested approach to work – making the document an article instead of a book. Originally when I did this fop produced the error

page-sequence must be child of root, not fo:flow

It occurred to me today that if I changed all my chapters to sect1s, it might work… and sure enough, it did.

I will try your customization on the book version too and decide which makes the most sense…

Regards,

Alan

From: Bob Stayton [mailto:bobs@sagehill.net]
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 4:55 PM
To: Alan Oehler; docbook-apps@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [docbook-apps] Page breaks at chapters

Hi Alan,

This customization pretty much does what you want. It turns out I didn't have to change the book template, only the way the chapters were handled. I copied match="chapter" template from fo/component.xsl, and changed the match on it to only match on the first chapter in a sequence: "chapter[1]". That chapter forms the page-sequence, formats its content, and then processes the following-sibling chapters within the same page sequence, but in a new mode="chapter.merge".

The chapter.merge template skips all the page-sequence stuff and just processes the chapter content. I had to define an empty template to match on these other chapters in the default mode so that they were not processed twice.

The result should be a single-page sequence containing all the chapter content.

<xsl:template match="chapter[1]" priority="1">
<xsl:variable name="id">
<xsl:call-template name="object.id"/>
</xsl:variable>

<xsl:variable name="master-reference">
<xsl:call-template name="select.pagemaster"/>
</xsl:variable>

<fo:page-sequence hyphenate="{$hyphenate}"
                    master-reference="{$master-reference}">
    <xsl:attribute name="language">
      <xsl:call-template name="l10n.language"/>
    </xsl:attribute>
    <xsl:attribute name="format">
      <xsl:call-template name="page.number.format">
        <xsl:with-param name="master-reference" select="$master-reference"/>
      </xsl:call-template>
    </xsl:attribute>
    <xsl:attribute name="initial-page-number">
      <xsl:call-template name="initial.page.number">
        <xsl:with-param name="master-reference" select="$master-reference"/>
      </xsl:call-template>
    </xsl:attribute>

    <xsl:attribute name="force-page-count">
      <xsl:call-template name="force.page.count">
        <xsl:with-param name="master-reference" select="$master-reference"/>
      </xsl:call-template>
    </xsl:attribute>

    <xsl:attribute name="hyphenation-character">
      <xsl:call-template name="gentext">
        <xsl:with-param name="key" select="'hyphenation-character'"/>
      </xsl:call-template>
    </xsl:attribute>
    <xsl:attribute name="hyphenation-push-character-count">
      <xsl:call-template name="gentext">
        <xsl:with-param name="key" select="'hyphenation-push-character-count'"/>
      </xsl:call-template>
    </xsl:attribute>
    <xsl:attribute name="hyphenation-remain-character-count">
      <xsl:call-template name="gentext">
        <xsl:with-param name="key" select="'hyphenation-remain-character-count'"/>
      </xsl:call-template>
    </xsl:attribute>

    <xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="running.head.mode">
      <xsl:with-param name="master-reference" select="$master-reference"/>
    </xsl:apply-templates>

    <xsl:apply-templates select="." mode="running.foot.mode">
      <xsl:with-param name="master-reference" select="$master-reference"/>
    </xsl:apply-templates>

    <fo:flow flow-name="xsl-region-body">
      <xsl:call-template name="set.flow.properties">
        <xsl:with-param name="element" select="local-name(.)"/>
        <xsl:with-param name="master-reference" select="$master-reference"/>
      </xsl:call-template>

      <fo:block id="{$id}"
                xsl:use-attribute-sets="component.titlepage.properties">
        <xsl:call-template name="chapter.titlepage"/>
      </fo:block>

      <xsl:variable name="toc.params">
        <xsl:call-template name="find.path.params">
          <xsl:with-param name="table" select="normalize-space($generate.toc)"/>
        </xsl:call-template>
      </xsl:variable>
      <xsl:if test="contains($toc.params, 'toc')">
        <xsl:call-template name="component.toc">
          <xsl:with-param name="toc.title.p"
                          select="contains($toc.params, 'title')"/>
        </xsl:call-template>
        <xsl:call-template name="component.toc.separator"/>
      </xsl:if>
      <xsl:apply-templates/>

<xsl:apply-templates select="following-sibling::chapter" mode="chapter.merge"/>

</fo:flow>
</fo:page-sequence>
</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="chapter" />

<xsl:template match="chapter" mode="chapter.merge">
<xsl:variable name="id">
<xsl:call-template name="object.id"/>
</xsl:variable>

      <fo:block id="{$id}"
                xsl:use-attribute-sets="component.titlepage.properties">
        <xsl:call-template name="chapter.titlepage"/>
      </fo:block>

<xsl:apply-templates/>

</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

Bob Stayton
Sagehill Enterprises
bobs@sagehill.net

----- Original Message -----

From: Alan Oehler

To: docbook-apps@lists.oasis-open.org

Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 8:47 AM

Subject: [docbook-apps] Page breaks at chapters

I’ve been trying to get a book to have no page breaks before chapters in the PDF output. Bob Stayton offered the advice that “a chapter element generates a page-sequence in FO output, and a page sequence always starts on a new page. If you want to use book and chapter, you'll need to customize both templates so that book generates a page-sequence for all your content, and chapter does not.”

I took a look at the book and chapter templates but it was a bit murky to me how they generate page sequences and how to accomplish what Bob suggests. Does anyone have any further clarification that they can offer?

Thanks in advance,

Alan

Alan C. Oehler

Sr. Technical Writer

Citrix Systems, Inc.

Virtualization & Management Division

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