Re: [tlug] xml to pdf

[Darren Cook <darren@example.com>]

Charles Muller wrote:
>>>   1a. Make a style sheet and view in firefox then print to PDF.
>>>   1b. Use XSL to convert to HTML (then to PDF using firefox)
>> ...
>> I am guessing that your XML is not written using a TEI DTD or schema,
>> but if you could convert it to TEI format, then I guess you could use
>> Sebastian Rahtz's style sheets to generate PDF directly. ...

Birkir A. Barkarson wrote:
> Same thing with DocBook

Thanks Charles and Birkir for the suggestions; I wasn't familiar with
TEI so had a quick look. If the original XML was this well formatted my
life would be easy (but then my clients probably wouldn't need me :-).

Michael Smith wrote:
> You could create a CSS stylesheet for it, then use Prince[1] to
> create a PDF.
> 
> [1] http://www.princexml.com/

Thanks, it looks interesting; I'll give it a look if using firefox is
inadequate.

(I've not tried yet; I am waiting for the client to tell me this is the
most urgent next task.)

Jep wrote:
> What program was the XML file created with? 
> What did the creator of the data expect to view the XML file with? 

When I asked how the XML was created I was told by hand. When I then
asked how the 250 page PDF of the same data was created I was told by
hand. When I suggested the only way that could be economically feasible
was if they have a highly educated slave labour source, and they need to
stop messing around and tell me which program they used, they get kept
quiet.

The XML file is the built-in help for a Windows program. Presumably
there is some Windows component that is quite happy to use an XML file
that embeds HTML and uses entities inconsistently :-).

Darren