I've been asked to convert an existing textbook to DocBook for publishing in a variety of media. The authors of the textbook tried to do students a favour by including summary notes in the margins throughout the book. An example, if you're viewing this is a fixed-width font, is as follows:
> This is a paragraph of important text. In > this paragraph we give an example of how This paragraph is an > example. > including summary notes in the text margins > can significantly enhance student enjoyment. > Students are happier when they don't have Students like this > approach. > to make their own summary notes. Blah, blah, > blah... I had this crazy idea that the <sidebar> element would be appropriate. It' s not perfect, as I don't think a <sidebar> can be a child of a <para> which means my sidebars will always line up with the top of a paragraph, but it's pretty close. A fragment of my markup follows: > <section> > <title> > A First Section > </title> > <para> > Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some >narrative > text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. > Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some > narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some > narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some > narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some > narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some > narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some > narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some > narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some > narrative text. > </para> > <sidebar> > <title> > A Sidebar > </title> > <para> > Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar >content. > Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content. > Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content. > Sidebar content. > </para> > </sidebar> > <para> > The continuing flow of the narrative text. The >continuing > flow of the narrative text. The continuing flow of the narrative text. > The continuing flow of the narrative text. The continuing flow of the > narrative text. The continuing flow of the narrative text. The > continuing flow of the narrative text. The continuing flow of the > narrative text. The continuing flow of the narrative text. The > continuing flow of the narrative text. The continuing flow of the > narrative text. The continuing flow of the narrative text. The > continuing flow of the narrative text. The continuing flow of the > narrative text. > </para> > </section> When I ran this through the XSL:FO stylesheets in the docbook-xsl-1.45 distribution (as the CVS stylesheets appear to require more than my naive knowledge to function) the result was something close to: > Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some > narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some > narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. Some > narrative text. Some narrative text. Some narrative text. > > Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content. > Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content. > Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content. Sidebar content. > > The continuing flow of the narrative text. The continuing flow of the > narrative text. The continuing flow of the narrative text. The > continuing flow of the narrative text. The continuing flow of the > narrative text. The continuing flow of the narrative text. The sidebar content appeared to simply be embedded in the flow of the document. Has anyone managed to achieve the effect I am looking for using the stock DocBook DTDs and stylesheets? Thanks for your help! Jason Foster
