Re: [docbook-apps] Two nagging problems with docbook2pdf in texlive 2019

[Kevin Dunn <kdunn@hsc.edu>]

Thanks, Dave. You were helpful to me 10 years ago. The XEP PDF output looks pretty nice with the default xsl stylesheet. There are some fancy things I achieved with dsssl and jadetex, and I'm not sure how easy they would be with an xsl-fo toolchain:

1. the Lettrine tex package did a great job producing drop caps.
2. I wrote custom dsssl to make xref link to page numbers, for example "These are found in Appendix A (page 127)."
3. pdfjadetex produces nice ligatures, including, for example, ffi. Using the default xsl stylesheet, fop doesn't do any ligatures, and xep does fi, but not ffi. Maybe it depends on the font?
4. The titlepage used a custom graphic for the title, rather than rendering it in a font.

I'm willing to learn xsl-fo, and I'm willing to spend hundreds, but not thousands of dollars on commercial tools. I've tried xsltproc-fop and xsltproc-xep. Are there other combinations for less than a thousand dollars?

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From: Dave Pawson <dave.pawson@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 11, 2021 3:49:18 AM
To: Kevin Dunn <kdunn@hsc.edu>
Cc: docbook-apps@lists.oasis-open.org <docbook-apps@lists.oasis-open.org>
Subject: Re: [docbook-apps] Two nagging problems with docbook2pdf in texlive 2019

 

My view, a 12 yo tool chain is plain OOD?

How much work did you put in to the stylesheets?
Is the up to date XSL too far from what you can manage with?

regards
--
Dave Pawson
XSLT XSL-FO FAQ.
Docbook FAQ.