DOCBOOK-APPS: Re: DOCBOOK: Format for printing

[Dan York <dyork at e-smith dot com>]

Redirecting to docbook-apps...

On Mon, Dec 10, 2001 at 11:53:59PM -0700, John Gruenenfelder wrote:
> Hello.  I've written two manuals now with DocBook and find it very easy (and
> sensible) to work with.  My problems stem from converting the SGML to
> something suitable for printing.  Converting to HTML works perfectly.
> 
> I use the Jade wrapper docbook2ps to convert my manual to PS for printing.
> This works wel and the result can be viewed with ghostview and prints okay.
> Well, mostly okay.  It seems that the PS that Jade outputs uses a paper size
> of A4.  When printed on my printer using US Letter sized paper, the page
> heading is cut off and I get an extra large bottom margin.  The same can be
> seen if I set ghostview to Letter instead of autodetect.
> 
> I cannot find any command lines options to Jade or the wrapper for setting the
> paper size.  After a bit of poking around, I found the place in the
> appropriate stylesheet where the default paper size is set.  I know this is
> not the proper way to customize the output, but for a quick hack I set the
> stylesheet to use Letter all the time.  Unfortunately, my output is still
> using A4 paper size.

In the DSSSL stylesheets, inside of the 'print' subdirectory, there is
a file called 'dbparam.dsl'.  Inside of there you will find a setting
for paper-type.  The correct way to set this would be to create a 
customization layer and include the following:

  (define %paper-type%
     "USletter")

That should work fine.

Examples of a customization layer can be found on:

  http://docbook.org/tdg/en/html/ch04.html

in section 4.3.8.1 and 4.3.8.2.2.

> How can I change this?  Is there a better forum to ask this in?  Thanks!

Yes, the docbook-apps list is the appropriate place for questions
about *processing* DocBook documents.  The 'docbook' list is for 
discussion of DocBook itself (the DTD, elements, etc.)

> -- 
> --John Gruenenfelder    Research Assistant, Steward Observatory, U of Arizona
> johng@as.arizona.edu

Regards,
Dan

-- 
Dan York, Director of Training, Network Server Solutions Group
Mitel Networks Corporation                  dan_york@mitel.com
Ph: +1-613-751-4401 Cell: +1-613-263-4312 Fax: +1-613-564-7739 
150 Metcalfe Street, Suite 1500, Ottawa,ON K2P 1P1 Canada
http://www.e-smith.com/         http://www.mitel.com/sme/