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Re: Problem converting DB to PDF...
- To: Adam Di Carlo <adam at onshore dot com>
- Subject: Re: DOCBOOK-APPS: Problem converting DB to PDF...
- From: Nik Clayton <nik at nothing-going-on dot demon dot co dot uk>
- Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 15:43:27 +0000
- Cc: Michael Wiedmann <mw at miwie dot in-berlin dot de>,docbook-apps at lists dot oasis-open dot org, Debian SGML <debian-sgml at lists dot debian dot org>
- Organization: Nik at home, where there's nothing going on
- References: <20010208172837.A25204@e-smith.com>
On Tue, Feb 20, 2001 at 04:04:27AM -0500, Adam Di Carlo wrote:
> I have an unreleased but I think pretty decent system, 'preheat'.
> This is a scheme-based system. You specify a little scheme file with
> the local stuff to build and customization, for instance:
Oh God. Just as soon as I think I've cleared some free time, something
new and interesting comes along.
:-)
We should really try and get together at some point and go through this
stuff in more detail. I get the feeling there are several groups all
working towards similar goals, and there are just too many mailing lists
to keep track of.
> Anyhow, Nik, your system looks good -- good enough to go through and
> cull ideas from.
There's one change I had to make to the description I posted. In
FreeBSD you now (or will have to very shortly, when I commit it) write
something like
<imagedata fileref="figure1" format="PNG">
or '... format="EPS"', depending on the *source* format of the image.
You still only have one ImageData element per image, but you have to
specify the format.
Why?
I discovered that if I convert PNG images to EPS files and then run them
through TeX they appear about twice the size they should do. For
example, an 80x24 xterm takes up almost half the page.
Scaling the images works, but then you have a problem.
Image Format
Output Format PNG EPS
HTML Native format, looks OK Is converted to PNG
using png2eps, looks
OK
Postscript Is converted to EPS,
needs scaling by 50% Native format, looks OK
PDF Native format, needs
scaling by 50% Is converted to PDF,
looks OK
The PNG images are the problem. You need to scale them in the
Postscript and PDF case. You can do this in one of two ways:
1. Write
<imagedata fileref="figure1" scale="50">
in your document. The problem with this is HTML images will be
scaled, and so will the EPS and PDF images. So then you have to
create all your EPS images twice the size they need to be, *and*
scale them all by 50% when you convert EPS to PNG.
Unacceptable.
2. Update the stylesheet to scale all images by 50% if the scale
attribute is not set. Less work for the author, but has the other
problems that (1) has.
Neither of these are acceptable.
So, my third solution was to mandate the use of the 'format' attribute.
But we use to specify what the original image format was. So if you
have a PNG image, you write
<imagedata filereg="figure1" format="PNG">
Then redefine the Graphic handling in the stylesheet, like so;
(define ($graphic$ fileref
#!optional (display #f) (format #f)
(scale #f) (align #f))
(let* ((graphic-format (if format format ""))
(graphic-scale (if scale
(/ (string->number scale) 100)
(if (and tex-backend
(equal? graphic-format "PNG"))
0.5 1)))
(graphic-align (cond ((equal? align (normalize "center"))
'center)
((equal? align (normalize "right"))
'end)
(else
'start))))
(make external-graphic
entity-system-id: (graphic-file fileref)
notation-system-id: graphic-format
scale: graphic-scale
display?: display
display-alignment: graphic-align)))
which automatically scales the image by 50% if the following holds
1. The author didn't specify a "scale" attribute themselves.
2. tex-backend is #t
3. The "format" attribute is "PNG"
A kludge, but it works.
> > I fetched the above mentioned FreeBSD Makefiles and adapted them
> > especially to Debian/GNU Linux (pathnames, etc.). Up to now there is no
> > additional documentation except the .mk files itself - and the original
> > posting of Nik of course!
> >
> > You will find a tarball at: http://www.miwie.org/docbkmake/
> >
> > Feedback is welcome :-)
>
> FYI, freebsd.dsl is already shipped on debian systems, in the
> docbook-stylesheets package.
Ah, I didn't know that.
What's the best way to make sure that you guys are informed when changes
are committed?
N
--
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