Re: foo ... bar Re: Q: XML+XSL transforms to a print-ready format

["James Tauber" <jtauber@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I've been comntemplating implementing an open source FO to PostScript
> program myself for a while now, with the ability to handle moderately
> complex page typography.  It will have to wait until I finish the book
> on XML and databases that's taking up so much of my time.

Please consider joining me on FOP.

> XSL has come a long way since then, but it was never really page-oriented.

Huh?

> Heck, it's not all that typographically oriented, you're not going to
> throw Quark away.  There's no way to override kerning pairs or ligatures,
> and that's pretty darned basic.

It would be easy to add this override. I have long dreamed of adding an
interactivity to FOP so manual adjustments could be made and saved back to a
FO tree serialisation. Kerning, forced line and page breaks, hypenation
suggestions, etc are the kinds of things I envisaged.

> Automatic running headers, cross references
> (see Figure 5.1 "black socks" on page 521, upper right),
> smart cross references (see Figure 3, opposite page),
> sorting an index with page numbers included, footnotes that don't
> quite fit on the same page as the reference, table headers that repeat
> on subsequent pages, with automatically generated column heading text,
> and a table footer that says "page 3 of 5" or "continued", feathering
> and vertical balancing of columns, text wrapping around non-erctangular
> shapes, text on a path of lines and splies/curves, the list goes on and
on.

All of these should eventually be possible. As you yourself said, none of
this is new. None of the above are unimplementable. It is just a question of
whether XSL lets you express them or whether you need extensions.

James


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