DOCBOOK-APPS: Customizing PDF look and feel using DocBook,Epic Print Composer and XSL-FO

[Tristan Bishop <tristan at inviosoftware dot com>]

Hi there,

Good morning. I am at my wits end trying to customize my converted DocBook
XML to PDF output, and I'm finally getting humble and asking for help.


SYSTEM:

I'm on Windows 2000. I'm using the DocBook XML DTD, more accurately, the
Arbortext ATI XML DocBook V4.0 DTD. This is the DTD that works with the
Arbortext Epic Print Composer product.

For styling, I'm using the DocBook 1.48 style sheets that I downloaded from
Source Forge. I'm also using the Arbortext Epic 4.2 editor, and their Print
Composer engine.  As far as I know, the Arbortext engine contains Xalan for
XSL
processing, as well as some kind of converter (possibly FOP?) to go from
FO's to
post script. I'm then using Adobe Acrobat distiller 5.0 for Windows to go
from PS to PDF.

(Though I am using the Arbortext DTD, I'm not using any Arbortext
extensions, nor did I enable these extensions via the Arbortext extensions
parameter in the DocBook FO style sheets.)

CONVERSION:

I was able to successfully generate PDF content using the default source
forge style sheets. So, to move forward, I then created a customization
layer, using instructions found at the following websites:

http://www.dpawson.co.uk/docbook/styling/custom.html
http://www.nwalsh.com/docs/articles/dbdesign/#parameterization

As instructed, I placed my custom.xsl file in the FO directory, and used an
import statement to trigger docbook.xsl.  See below:

<xsl:import href="docbook.xsl"/>

That said, I now have two primary, and prohibitive issues:

ISSUE NUMBER 1) Not all parameters respond to my customization layer.

I used the FO parameter Reference list found at:

http://docbook.sourceforge.net/projects/xsl/doc/fo/

Many of the customized parameters work just fine. Such as:

<xsl:param name="admon.graphics" select="1"/>
<xsl:param name="body.font.family">Arial</xsl:param>
<xsl:param name="title.margin.left" select="'0pc'"/>

Other recommended customization parameters simply do not change the
resulting PDF output. Examples of ignored parameters include:

page.margin.bottom
page.margin.inner
page.margin.outer
page.margin.top

ISSUE NUMBER 2) The file path to reference graphics is being mangled

Within my DocBook XML source, I use the <graphic> element to refer to screen
shots. The syntax is:

<graphic fileref="abcdefg.jpg"/>

When I run the conversion, I receive an error message stating:

[A12630] Error: The graphics file cdefg.jpg could not be opened.

No matter what the file name or file path, the conversion process cuts of
the first two letters of the file name. So if my graphic is

/12345/abcdefg.jpg

The error will say:

[A12630] Error: The graphics file 345/abcdefg.jpg could not be opened.

(BTW, my admonishment graphics (called by the style sheets) show up just
fine in the PDF output, but not the screen shots.)

=======
My questions:

Why are some parameters ignored?
What's going on with the <graphic> element?
Are these troubles because I'm using the ATI XML DocBook V4.0 DTD with the
Epic print composer?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Tristan David Bishop
Technical Publishing Manager
Invio Software, Inc.
2121 Staunton Ct., Palo Alto, CA 94306
650-813-1200 x119
Tristan@Inviosoftware.com