[...] >> 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.
Well you have to edit the cover page in something, be it asciidoc, xml or a WYSIWYG editor. After that combining them can be automated by a script. > >> > 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. Please note that asciidoc is the tool that generates the docbook and the a2x script just runs several toolchains after that. Those toolchains are separate projects with their own faqs and helpful people. It is beyond the scope of asciidoc to support using the toolchains themselves, although if you ask here, anyone who can help will, but the more likely place to get the answers is the toolchains own support. > > 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... Couldn't agree more, would love a toolchain that used CSS for styling or created the styles in a visual editor. For the former there are commercial docbook processors that use CSS but nobody made an open source version. For the latter there was an experiment that created ODF from asciidoc so it could pick up styles from Libreoffice, but it got to a point that supported the originator's purpose and then nobody else contributed, so I guess nobody really wanted that capability after all. Thats open source. > > * 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... As I have said before, Asciidoc and Asciidoctor are not in competition, they are simply two tools that transform the Asciidoc markup to various presentation formats. Asciidoctor is new and so incomplete, but it is in active development, so it is where new things like toolchainless PDF might be added. > > 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). > Personally I hate rest (I have to use it on other projects I contribute to) and so I don't find out what sphinx can do, so I can't comment. > 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... Hope you find a happy solution, its good that people help with translating manuals, and that needs encouraging. But I have to ask, would those projects not prefer you to use the same format as their original (presumably English) manual so it uses the same tools? Cheers Lex > > -- > > > 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. -- 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.
