[xsl] Demonstrable back of the book index methodology for XSL-FO 1.0

Subject: [xsl] Demonstrable back of the book index methodology for XSL-FO 1.0
From: "G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 22:34:56 -0500
The XSL-FO 1.0 page-number citation facility is well-suited for the generation of tables of content but ill-suited for back-of-the-book indexes where the cited pages must be arbitrarily massaged into ranges and singleton pages.

I've just implemented back-of-the-book indexes for the next edition cycle of our electronic books. It mostly involves XSLT and XSL-FO 1.0 ... the catch is to use the PDF output format for an intermediate pass and a no-charge download for extracting text from PDF files. The model will work for other final form print formats where the canvas content can be extracted.

I've distilled a working demonstration and the XSLT stylesheets for doing this to illustrate the methodology. I introduced this methodology during the question and answer period of Eliot Kimber's XSL-FO case study at the Extreme Markup conference in Montréal last August. I only got the chance to implement it last week.

Only one no-charge PDF to text download has been identified so far ... I'm hoping other XSL-FO users will tell me of other tools meeting the free criteria.

Please visit the "Resource Library (free developer tools)" link from our home page cited below.

Feedback is welcome!

.................... Ken

--
Upcoming hands-on in-depth XSLT/XPath and/or XSL-FO:
-                             North America:  Feb 3 - Feb 7,2003

G. Ken Holman               mailto:gkholman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Crane Softwrights Ltd.        http://www.CraneSoftwrights.com/s/
Box 266, Kars, Ontario CANADA K0A-2E0  +1(613)489-0999 (F:-0995)
ISBN 0-13-065196-6                     Definitive XSLT and XPath
ISBN 0-13-140374-5                             Definitive XSL-FO
ISBN 1-894049-08-X Practical Transformation Using XSLT and XPath
ISBN 1-894049-10-1             Practical Formatting Using XSL-FO
Next conference training:                          2003-03-03,06


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