On Wed, Dec 24, 2014 at 08:20:14AM +1000, Lex Trotman wrote: > On 23 December 2014 at 22:02, Marco Ciampa <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi all, > > I'm an old newbie, not really a programmer nor Linux expert that tries to > > be useful translating free software and free software manuals in my > > mother tongue (Italian). > > > > To this aim I have started the experiment to port all KiCad documentation, > > odt based, into a light markup to easy the translation effort through the > > use of po files. > > This is the result of this effort: > > > > https://github.com/ciampix/kicad-doc > > > > Now to the point. I would like to make asciidoc or asciidoctor to > > produce good pdf / epub results. I do not know, even superficially, > > docbook and xslt but I know that to this aim I have to start coding > > with this format and associated tools. > > Sadly yes if you are using the FOP toolchain.
I am not using FOP since, as others already pointed it out, IMHO it produces less than satisfactory pdf outputs... > > Is there a way to do it easily? I mean I am not even able to produce a > > decent pdf cover without page number and possibly with the KiCad logo on > > top of it! > > You could try producing the cover page in something like Libreoffice, > printing it to pdf and then I believe there are tools that can glue > PDFs together (maybe even directly in libreoffice, see > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDF_software) so you can glue it > to the start of the PDF of the book contents you made conveniently > with a2x. That is not what I meant with "easy". My aim is to _automate_ the pdf compilation, that was the main reason to escape from ODF format. > > With rest + Sphinx I am able to produce an almost perfect pdf, epub and > > html. I would like to do it with Asciidoc too, because I personally like > > much more asciidoc syntax than rest, this without having to study too > > much docbook and xslt transformations. > > > > Is it feasible? Is it better to buy a good docbook + xslt manual and > > start studing seriously? > > See http://sagehill.net/docbookxsl/CustomizingPart.html (referenced by > Asciidoc FAQ #3), it covers book covers :) Yes, sadly it is not comprehensive, or I am not so "smart" (probably) or it simply does _not_ work at all (also probably)... IMHO that FAQ item should be expanded with some working examples. For istance I never succeded to produce a pdf of a "book" type document with an index and a cover page, not to mention the logo image on the cover... For my test I am evaluating all aspects of the format choice. These comprehend: * responsiveness of the doc tools experts (ok you were responsive and kind enough, thanks! :-) * easiness to circunvent problems .. (so and so... with asciidoc due to a2x docbook dependencies). Messing around witha hacks in latex / xslt / pdftk or so is definitely not the way to do these things... * completeness of the document sistem. For example, sphinx is able to produce an (almost) complete makefile that takes care of all the documentation production details. This together with being the tool chain able to create the best pdf / ebook right out-of-the-box without messing with pdftk (keep in mind that there is no epubtk able to do the same...) make it the clear tool winner... Having said so asciidoctor seems the (actually incomplete) tool more promising. Asciidoctor-pdf promise to produce (in the future) pdf without the docbook toolchain and if there will be something similar for epub that could be veeeeery interesting. If asciidoctor will incorporate support for .po file to gurantee easy i18n features that will definitely put it ahead of the pack. For now I am stuck between a powerful tool (sphinx) with ostic sintax (rest) and a powerful sintax (asciidoc) with a poor tool (a2x). I am wrong? Please let me know your thoughts If not, now I have all the elements to make a (not easy) decision... Anyway many thanks for your help in clarifying me the things out... -- Marco Ciampa I know a joke about UDP, but you might not get it. +--------------------+ | Linux User #78271 | | FSFE fellow #364 | +--------------------+ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "asciidoc" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/asciidoc. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
