Converting a Document from XML to Print (PDF,PostScript,etc.)

XML-to-Print Procedures:

• WARNING: It's a lot easier to use plain DocBook (SGML vs. XML) and simply execute command "docbook2pdf" (from package "docbook-utils") to get some printable output. That's no fun, let's get on the bleeding edge and use XSL!

1. The following was done with operating system Debian 3.0 (woody). Some non-free software was used (Java).
        
2. Make an XML document using a DocBook document-type-definition (DTD).
   1. XML:: Where to Begin? - original
   2. XML:: Where to Begin? - HTML
   
        
3. Install XSL stylesheets package:
   apt-get install docbook-xsl-stylesheets
         ...there are two packages called "docbook-xsl", one with "-stylesheets" and one without.
4. Install common Java package:
   apt-get install java-common
   See: /usr/share/doc/java-common/debian-java-faq/ch2.html
5. Install Java runtime environment:
   1. To install blackdown.org's Java for Debian, edit /etc/apt/sources.list:

      deb ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/linux/devel/lang/java/blackdown.org/debian woody main
      deb ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/linux/devel/lang/java/blackdown.org/debian woody non-free

   2. dselect update
   3. apt-get install j2re1.3
   
        
7. "... to get print, you need an XSLT engine..." such as XT written by James Clark. Link "http://www.jclark.com/xml/xt.html" now points to "http://www.blnz.com/xt/index.html". REFERENCE: /usr/share/doc/docbook-xsl-stylesheets/doc/index.html.
8. Download "source and binaries" "http://www.blnz.com/xt/xt-20020426a-src.tgz". To use XT, you need "xt.jar" from the above and an XML parser in Java that supports SAX, such as XP.
9. XP is at: "http://www.jclark.com/xml/xp/" specifically: "ftp://ftp.jclark.com/pub/xml/xp.zip".
10. Change into a temporary directory (because I don't know how to fix a "java.io.FileNotFoundException" error) and do the following:
    1. Create a symbolic link to a test document: ln -s ~/Democracyu/postcast_msaccess_doc.xml ./test.xml
    2. Copy three JAR files to temporary directory:
       • xp.jar
       • xt.jar
       • sax.jar
    3. Create environment variable:
       • CLASSPATH=xp.jar:xt.jar:sax.jar
       • export CLASSPATH
    4. Create another environment variable to shorten Java syntax:
       • FO=/usr/share/sgml/docbook/stylesheet/xsl/nwalsh/fo/docbook.xsl
    5. There's got to be a way to specify where directory "dtd" is located inside the XML document. Lacking that knowledge, a work-around that solves a "java.io.FileNotFoundException" error is to link to the directory:
       • ln -s /usr/share/sgml/docbook/dtd/ dtd
11. In the above temporary directory, process XML document to create FO using Java:
    java       com.jclark.xsl.sax.Driver       test.xml $FO >test.fo
         
12. This is what you should see when the FO file is created successfully:
    file:/tmp/test.xml:1: Making portrait pages on USletter paper (8.5inx11in)
         
13. The FO file is in an abstract format that cannot be read. It's not markup anymore and it's not suitable for viewing--it's an abstract representation of the document's content.
14. To convert FO into a printable document using FOP, a formatting object processor available for free from Apache XML Project: http://xml.apache.org/dist/fop/fop-0.20.3-bin.tar.gz
    ... see Running FOP.
    1. JAVA_HOME=/usr
    2. export JAVA_HOME
    3. fop-0.20.3/fop.sh test.fo test.pdf
15. Even though the above works using "character.fo" that comes with FOP, unfortunately the above results in an error:
16. Notes:

Click here (or click icon) to validate markup.
http://  www.lafn.org  /  ~cymbala

Email: Robert Cymbala