I have been spending some time learning xsl, and then applying what I've learned to the xsl files that the DITA package provides for converting the DITA to PDF files. I am now at the point where I have a working PDF with no formatting problems, no empty fields, WORKING cross-links, and a working table of contents. Thanks to Andrew for some help with the linking problems...
I sent my latest PDF of the Getting Started guide to Jean, and she put it alongside the one created using the old DITA xsl files. I also sent her my modified xsl files in a zip, so that you all can download and use those in place of the original one, and feel free to make any modifications. If you figure something out that I haven't that could help, please post so that we can all benefit from your ideas. All of these new files are already available on the Manuals page. Thanks Jean! Finally, I had to modify some of the metadata in the ditamap files for each book so that they would work with the xsl files, so I will be recontributing those as well, along with my changes to the file names that I mentioned in a previous post. Those zips will all be updated when Jean puts the new PDF online. I have noticed a lot of quality improvements that I can make to the Getting Started Guide, so if no one has any objections, I will once again make cosmetic changes to that book and check them in to Jean when I am done. Here are the remaining items that I see as to-do's for the PDF: - I got the table of contents out of the way, but we still need an index, both for the html and the PDF's. If I remember correctly, Scott Hutinger had posted some information on index generation ideas, so I am going to take a look at those and see if I can work on that. Scott, if you've made any progress, please let us know. - The xsl files place the chapter title at the top left of each page, but seem to be placing the chapter 1 title (Introducing Derby) on every page of the book. I can locate where that is being called (in the dita2fo_shell.xsl file), but I haven't figured out a way of fixing it yet. - After the table of contents and before the first chapter, why is the brand, book title, and product name being displayed at the top of the page? - Related links. These aren't necessary, but definitely desirable in my opinion. These would be links to parent topics at the bottom of each child topic, as well as links on a parent topic to all of its children. These should be easily generated in the xsl files, but we aren't doing it yet. I am going to work on this as well, and any help would be appreciated. - When linking to a chapter topic, either inline from another topic or from the table of contents, the link takes you to the blank page before the topic starts. Need to figure out how to fix that... - Page breaks and keep-togethers for topics. - Page numbering seems odd...why do the content pages start with 2?
