Subject: Re: [xsl] Prince XML vs Docbook From: "Eliot Kimber ekimber@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2018 16:00:43 -0000 |
In the context of DITA, the main open-source PDF tool (the PDF2 plugin for the DITA Open Toolkit) is difficult to extend and customize and is not internally consistent with the other Open Toolkit plugins (it's a sad case of good intentions gone awry coupled with the vagaries of volunteer-developed open source and the overall challenge of implementing pagination for complex technical documents). In that context, the fact that there are existing XSL-FO transforms is actually a hindrance rather than a help and I'm hopeful that a CSS-based solution can provide some relief there. In the DITA context you already have to use Antenna House or XEP in order to get appropriate PDF quality, so switching from XSL-FO to CSS using Antenna House will not be a material change in tools acquisition costs but could represent a dramatic reduction in implementation and maintenance costs. Also, in the DITA case there is already a very good, easy-to-customize DITA-to-HTML5 transform that can serve very well as the basis for a DITA-to-HTML5-optimize-for-CSS-pagination transform. I would have already tried to implement this if I wasn't so busy with other projects (including the loose-leaf project I mentioned earlier). Cheers, Eliot -- Eliot Kimber http://contrext.com o;?On 1/17/18, 8:22 PM, "Liam R. E. Quin liam@xxxxxx" <xsl-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: On Thu, 2018-01-18 at 02:00 +0000, Vasu Chakkera vasucv@xxxxxxxxx wrote: > Thanks Liam.. > So is there a good reason to use xsl fo instead of princeXML ..Or > vice versa? If you have complex multi-page tables with repeated headers and footers you'll probably get further with the XSL:FO stylesheets. The main reasons to use CSS as i see it are (1) if the CSS (or CSS knowledge) overlaps with other projects it might be easier for you to work on (and there are more resources for learning it) (2) if you want to use new features that aren't in XSL-FO... but watch that neither PrinceXML nor AntennaHouseFormatter will have the very latest browser CSS features. > I would have thought that there are ready made xslts available for > docbook > So a little bit of a style guide is all we need for look and feel ? There are indeed off-the-shelf style sheets. Again, it depends on your specific needs as to what's best. Liam -- Liam Quin, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/ Staff contact for Verifiable Claims WG, SVG WG, XQuery WG Web slave for http://www.fromoldbooks.org/
Current Thread |
---|
|
<- Previous | Index | Next -> |
---|---|---|
Re: [xsl] Prince XML vs Docbook, Liam R. E. Quin liam | Thread | Re: [xsl] Prince XML vs Docbook, Eliot Kimber ekimber |
Re: [xsl] Prince XML vs Docbook, Eliot Kimber ekimber | Date | Re: [xsl] Prince XML vs Docbook, Michael Kay mike@xxx |
Month |