Re: DOCBOOK-APPS: Images & PDF output

[Bob McIlvride <robert at cogent dot ca>]

Martin Perina wrote:

> Is there some way to made jadetex use PNG file?

Here's what we've been doing, if you find it to be any help.  First of
all, to get the best, clearest output for images in PDF, we convert our
bitmaps and vector images to .pdf files in Adobe Printshop (which allows
us to scale them while maintaining excellent resolution, and relatively
small file size).  We use .eps files for Postscript output, and .gif or
..png for HTML.  

For processing, we use a trick posted on the DOCBOOK list on 03/01/00 by
Angus Lees.  Use the <graphic> tag, and put in a fileref="image" without
any extension, where "image" can be, for example, image.pdf, image.eps,
image.gif, etc. for each format you need.  Then, by adding this code to
the print stylesheet:

....................................................................

 (define (graphic-file filename)
   (let ((ext (file-extension filename)))
     (if (or tex-backend   ;; TeX can work this out itself
             (not filename)
             (not %graphic-default-extension%)
             (member ext %graphic-extensions%))
         filename
         (string-append filename "." %graphic-default-extension%))))
......................................................................

the correct extension is chosen and used automatically.  For the HTML
stylesheet you can just specify .gif or .png like this:

......................................................................
(define %graphic-default-extension% "gif")
.....................................................................

We take this route rather than the more updated <mediaobject>, because
the .pdf extension isn't recognized by DocBook 3.1.  This route gives us
a workaround, since the .pdf extension isn't in the SGML code at all.  

Hopefully, version 4.0 or 4.1 recognizes .pdf (we haven't checked yet)
or at least 5.0 will, because by that time the <graphic> tag will be
obsolete, right Norm?

---
Bob