DOCBOOK-APPS: How Do I Customize Stylesheets?

[Anja Schwarzpaul <aschwarzpaul at tecon dot de>]

Hi,

my current task is to set up a documentation process for my company. The
goal is to produce print and HTML formats with conditional content. The
process should be platform independent and single source so it wasn't
long before I ran into DocBook.

I started out with basic XML knowledge and have learned XSL, XPath, FO,
and DocBook basics in the past 3 weeks or so. However, there are some
issues that I haven't been able to figure out yet, the most important
one being stylesheet customization (XSL).

Just to see if it works, I wrote a customization layer that imports
docbook.xsl and changes the default language to German. Examples of what
I'm trying to do next include: assigning a new standard font, adjusting
spacing and indentation, and resizing page layout. This must have been
done thousands of times, yet it's not easy to find answers (checked TDG,
internet, and param.xsl/stylesheet documentation).

To be more specific: In my driver file, which variable will I need to
set
- to change the default paper format (to A4)?
- to set widow/orphan values?
- to prevent a header from appearing at the bottom of a page?
- to adjust vertical spacing between listitems?
etc.

I'd be grateful if somebody out there could point me to a source that
might help me sort these things out.

TIA,

Anja