Fwd: Re: DOCBOOK: Invisible tech symbols

[Doug du Boulay <ddb@R3401.msl.titech.ac.jp>]

On Tuesday 10 December 2002 08:02, Tomek Kaczanowski wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm new to DocBook, and I have problem with tech symbols. I have a
> file like this:
>
> <?xml version='1.0' encoding='ISO-8859-2'?>
> <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
> "file://c:\docbook\dtd\docbookx.dtd" [
> <!ENTITY % ISOtech PUBLIC "ISO 8879:1986//ENTITIES General Technical//EN"
>  "file://c:\docbook\dtd\ent\iso-tech.ent">
> ]>
> ...
> ...
> <para>&forall; &and; &cap; &infin;</para>
> ...
>
> The file is well-formed and valid, it produces nice .html and .pdf but
> some symbols ("forall" and "and") are invisible (pdf) or look like
> small squares (html). Why is it so and how can I fix it ?

I dont know what the official answer is, but for html, what I do is
replace all the unknown character entities with inline gifs.


<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V3.1//EN" [
  <!ENTITY % htmlsymbols SYSTEM  "htmlsymbols.ent"  >
  %htmlsymbols;
]>

where htmlsymbols.ent contains

<!ENTITY entpre "<inlinemediaobject><imageobject>"  >
<!ENTITY entpost "</imageobject></inlinemediaobject>"  >

<!ENTITY alpha  "&entpre;<imagedata fileref='alpha.lc.gif'>&entpost;" >
<!ENTITY beta   "&entpre;<imagedata fileref='beta.lc.gif'>&entpost;" >
<!ENTITY gamma  "&entpre;<imagedata fileref='gamma.lc.gif'>&entpost;" >
<!ENTITY chi    "&entpre;<imagedata fileref='chi.lc.gif'>&entpost;" >
<!ENTITY delta  "&entpre;<imagedata fileref='delta.lc.gif'>&entpost;" >
...

and I used the gif-ed character images from
http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/images/Math/Images.html
(Actually, I used Karen Strom's originals - not those ones but anyway)


sorry its a kludge. But it works.
Cheers
Doug