I was looking for an alternative to LaTeX. I recently learned how to setup DocBook. There’s a book explaining what DocBook is and how to use it; the old version of the book is available online. I also followed the instructions in the DocBook XSL book on how to install FOP, so in theory I had the entire tool chain to write an XML file, translate it to FO format using `xsltproc` and translating that to PDF format using `fop`.
old version of the book is available online
It looked very ugly. I felt like going back to LaTeX – and that’s pretty ugly, too!
I found that by default, FO processors only know about Times Roman, Helvetica, and Courier by default. So I decided to try and get the article font switched to Garamond before continuing my delve into Docbook. I got followed the instructions on adding a font and wasted some time tracking down jar files that were not needed and tracking down a copy of the Garamond font I could embed. In the end I got it all working! I had an ugly document, but it was A4, two columns, had some bold, and some italic, and my name on it.
But I also felt that maybe – just maybe – LaTeX and OpenOffice were not such a bad ideas after all.
Maybe I should just stick to OpenOffice and focus on *getting things done*.
Makefile:
all: test.pdf
%.fo: %.xml Makefile
xsltproc \
--output $@ \
--stringparam fop1.extensions 1 \
--stringparam paper.type A4 \
--stringparam column.count.body 2 \
--stringparam body.font.family Garamond \
/usr/local/share/xml/docbook-xsl/fo/docbook.xsl \
{body}lt;
%.pdf: %.fo
fop -c garamond.xml -fo {body}lt; -pdf $@
1. Garamond
1. curl http://garamond.org/font/urw/GaramondNo8.Files.txt | xargs wget
fonts: GaramondNo8-Ita.xml GaramondNo8-MedIta.xml GaramondNo8-Med.xml GaramondNo8-Reg.xml
GaramondNo8-%.xml: GaramondNo8-%.ttf
java -cp "/usr/local/share/xml/fop/build/fop.jar:/usr/local/share/xml/fop/lib/commons-io-1.3.1.jar:/usr/local/share/xml/fop/lib/commons-logging-1.0.4.jar:/usr/local/share/xml/fop/lib/xmlgraphics-commons-1.3.1.jar" \
org.apache.fop.fonts.apps.TTFReader \
{body}lt; $@
`/usr/local/share/xml/fop` is a symlink to `fop-0.95`.
The `garamond.xml` I also had to write:
<fop version="1.0">
<renderers>
<renderer mime="application/pdf">
<fonts>
<font metrics-url="GaramondNo8-Ita.xml" kerning="yes" embed-url="GaramondNo8-Ita.ttf">
<font-triplet name="Garamond" style="italic" weight="normal"/>
</font>
<font metrics-url="GaramondNo8-Med.xml" kerning="yes" embed-url="GaramondNo8-Med.ttf">
<font-triplet name="Garamond" style="normal" weight="bold"/>
</font>
<font metrics-url="GaramondNo8-MedIta.xml" kerning="yes" embed-url="GaramondNo8-MedIta.ttf">
<font-triplet name="Garamond" style="italic" weight="bold"/>
</font>
<font metrics-url="GaramondNo8-Reg.xml" kerning="yes" embed-url="GaramondNo8-Reg.ttf">
<font-triplet name="Garamond" style="normal" weight="normal"/>
</font>
</fonts>
</renderer>
</renderers>
</fop>
I also got `fop-hyph.jar` from OFFO and I got `jai_codec.jar` and `jai_core.jar` from the Java Advanced Imaging Downloads. I copied all three into `/usr/local/share/xml/fop/lib`.
Java Advanced Imaging Downloads
Uhm... That’s it, I think.
My test file:
<?xml version="1.0"?> <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN" "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd"> <article> <artheader> <title>My Article</title> <author><firstname>Alex</firstname> <surname>Schroeder</surname></author> </artheader> <sect1><title>Testing</title> <para>This is an ordinary paragraph with some <emphasis role="bold">bold</emphasis> and <emphasis>italic</emphasis> words.</para> </sect1> </article>
Oh, and this required the installation of the DocBook 4.5 XSL files and an entry in my catalog file. I got it from here: http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/ and followed my own instructions on how to update the catalog file.
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/
All of this seems mighty complicated compared to just starting OpenOffice and writing a document or two. Sure, I don’t like working with it. But I don’t like working with all these arcane files and formats either. I can already see myself trying to get a title page or a little table just right in a three page document. It’ll never be worth my time. I’d be a gazillion times faster using Emacs and plain text! 😄
#Publishing #DocBook #PDF
(Please contact me if you want to remove your comment.)
⁂
Check out docutils and rst2pdf. And yes, as soon as images are in the mix, you may want to consider something with a UI.
– Harald Wagener 2010-06-27 07:19 UTC
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Rst is definitely a good idea for 90% of articles. Also, if you want to publish it online, check out Sphinx.
– RadomirDopieralski 2010-06-27 12:54 UTC
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Or have a look at a Wiki-based solution, for example Confluence+Scroll Wiki Exporter.
– Stefan Kleineikenscheidt 2010-06-28 15:54 UTC
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Thanks for all the suggestions. I guess I just need to start producing a few small PDF documents for me to evaluate the various solutions.
– Alex Schroeder 2010-06-28 23:45 UTC