'[EMAIL PROTECTED]' wrote: > On 2005-12-03 @ 10:04:11 (week 48) Mark Schoonover wrote: > >> Thanks for the info! > > You're welcome. > >> I didn't think about DocBook, I'll check that >> out. My other option was to write a TT wrapper to use PDF::API2, and >> use that. Your approach might be easier, I don't know. I started >> learning LaTeX, but it's a bit difficult to get started. I'll check >> out DocBook and see how difficult that is. > > I found that learning XML/XSL was very easy and it has helped me in > other projects too. I think TeX is a fantastic tool, but in the > environment where I work it is just too much of an unknown factor. XML > is the buzzword for now and from what I have learned with good > reason. I choose XML over TeX because of its flexibility and because > I could easily re-use what I had learned for other purposes. DocBook > is just a specific implementation of XML, that has been developed to > meet the needs of people writing texts. For me it does all I need. > >> If you have an example template that I could use to >> learn?? > > I'd really like to, but I am not allowed to. However no fear, DocBook > is very well documented online. Here are the URLs I used to learn it: > > Web: http://docbook.org/ > Web: http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/index.html > Web: http://docbook.sourceforge.net/projects/xsl/ > Web: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/docbook/chapter/book/docbook.html
I found all this info over the weekend. I'm going through the sagehill book now. The online version of the O'Reilly book is way more up to date than the dead tree version. > > If you download the source distributions you'll find they contain > examples to get you started. > > I also bought these books: > > O'Reilly - Learning XML (ISBN0596000464) > O'Reilly - Learning XSLT (ISBN0596003277) > O'Reilly - DocBook: The Definitive Guide (ISBN1565925807) > Sagehill Enterprises - DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide > (ISBN0974152110) > > I can really recommend that last one! Very readable and full of good > information! I agree, going through that now. Might look into XML/XSLT books, put Safari to use! :) > > Essentially you use TT just like you were used to with HTML. Only now > the output is XML. You just generate a special form of text as output > and wrap the whole thing in a script that first uses TT to generate > the DocBook output from your templates. Next you use various CLI > commands to transform the DocBook files into the other formats. I > tend to go for the Java implementations, because I work in a hybrid > environment (*nix and Win32). Apart from the books I bought the > Oxygen editor (available for both platforms mentioned above). I found > it made my life sufficiently easier to spend the money on it (I never > regretted it). You could use just about any editor for it (I > preferred vim), but the additional tools targetted at specific XML > stuff (for example a DTD checker) in a dedicated editor made learning > all this a lot easier for me. However there are good OSS XML editors > available, so you could use one of those too. > > To me learning XML/XSL proofed to be easier than learning TeX, but > that could be just me. I have nothing against Tex, as a matter of > fact I have a lot of respect for it. It just wasn't the tool I > thought would meet > my needs best. > So, let me see if I have this correct. I'd use something like Oxygen to create an initial DocBook file. Take that, massage it into something for TT to use. After all that, create the DocBook XML file, run it through Xalan, then FOP to create HTML/PDF/PS outputs as needed. Probably best done through the FOP scripts mentioned in the sagehill book. There are other options for RTF format, and I think I saw creating PowerPoint presentation files. So, do I have it correct?? :) Thanks again for walking me through all this. It looks daunting at first, but actually, it's not that bad. Mark _______________________________________________ templates mailing list [email protected] http://lists.template-toolkit.org/mailman/listinfo/templates
