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Re: [dssslist] Page borders with DSSSL



At 2012-03-22 12:24 +0000, Ian Kent wrote:
I've got a one page document which is created using DocBook (4.5) SGML and DSSSL using docbook2ps (openjade back-end) to convert to postscript, which is then converted to a PDF using ps2pdf13. This is all working fine, but I'd like to add a border around the entire page.

I've managed to do it using 'make box' by overriding '(element book' and that works ok, but now I've added content to the page footer (using $center-footer$, and generated entirely via DSSSL) the border only appears around the page content. I'd like to have the border go around the footer content too if possible. I can get a border to appear around the footer (again using 'make box'), but then the border is separate from the actual page border, effectively leaving me with two separated boxes on the page.

Is there any way to enclose the page header, content and page footer inside a single border using DSSSL?

Not that I can think of, as there are no box properties on the page itself.


I then thought you could box each of the three but leave the before and after edges of the body "open", the after edge of the header "open" and the before edge of the footer "open" in order to mimic a box around the entire content, but it seems that isn't possible because "open" acts on only the before edge.

Have you tried putting each of the header, body and footer into its own table and then selectively turning off the borders so that the only borders that are showing appear to box the entire content?

Actually, since it is only a one-page document, can you put the header into a top-float in a table with an open bottom, the footer into a bottom-float in a table with an open top and then the body in a table? Perhaps not, because I can't think of how to stretch the height of the table.

In XSL-FO I would suggest creating a background image that is a box and putting that image on the page, but I don't see a background image property for a page in DSSSL.

I think you may be out of luck. Hopefully something I've said above will trigger an idea for someone else.

On a related note, my original idea was to have the footer defined as a <section condition="footer"> element in the source SGML which then gets filtered out of the main page content by checking the condition attribute. When it came to retrieving the <section> element from inside the $center-footer$ function I couldn't get it to work - whatever combination of functions and nodes I tried I kept getting 'node out of context' or 'not a node-list' errors - what would be the best way to begin normal processing of an element from within a DSSSL function, or is it not possible to begin normal node processing in the headers/footers?

I can't think of any intrinsic barriers to what you want to do ... the error messages imply the solution may simply be an error in how you are accessing the content. If you try to address something that isn't there and you don't have a node list for something that is expecting content, that could simply be a problem with an address ... something as simple as a typo.


Good luck! I hope this helps, though it doesn't give you anything definitive.

. . . . . . . . . . Ken

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