Curious ... XML to print, which applications do you all use?

[Allan Shearer]

Hi Everyone

I'm not looking to start a war here between Linux, Unix, Windows or Mac users ... nor to do the same amongst users of major (or minor!) brand name publishing applications ... but what I would like to know is:

- What software application/platform do YOU use to publish your XML to print?

(assuming PDF is the end goal ... and, assuming that print is even the destination for you at all - thus, those publishing to the web or other HTML based destinations, you're off the hook - this time! <grin>).

To start the ball rolling ... I'll tell you that I'm working in a Windows based-environment (WinXP) and am using Ventura Publisher to go to print. I use XSLT to convert XML to Ventura-marked-up text files. Most everything I do is 'long document', e.g., 100-1000s of pages with all the normal long document stuff you'd expect (images, tables, index, TOC, etc....).

There! I'm out'a the closet! Now ... tell me about yourselves.

Curiously yours,

Allan Shearer

 

[Joris Gillis]

Hi Everyone

I'm not looking to start a war here between Linux, Unix, Windows or Mac users ... nor to do the same amongst users of major (or minor!) brand name publishing applications ... but what I would like to know is:

- What software application/platform do YOU use to publish your XML to print?

I'm a OpenOffice.org fan, I regularly use XSLT to convert my XML into the native XML format of OpenOffice.org After the transformation, I can print it or use the PDF export function of the program.
OS: Windows 2000/NT

 

[Thomas Sommer]

I'm a OpenOffice.org fan, I regularly use XSLT to convert my XML into the

native XML format of OpenOffice.org After the transformation, I can print it or use the PDF export function of the program. OS: Windows 2000/NT

What kind of stylesheet do you use?

Myself I use docbook, transfer it to latex and print from there.
OS: Linux

 

[Joris Gillis]

I'm a OpenOffice.org fan, I regularly use XSLT to convert my XML into the

What kind of stylesheet do you use?

My own flavour
(I'm using it right now to format Latin text extracts with commentaries)

 

[rumionfire]

I use Apache's Cocoon ( http://cocoon.apache.org/ ) . It is quite stable and can handle large XML documents.

Here are some samples of on-the-fly XML -> PDF generation:
http://www.xml-dev.com/blog/#88
and
http://validate.sf.net

In Peace,
Saqib Ali

 

[Thomas Sommer]

Am Wed, 17 Nov 2004 16:01:18 +0000 schrieb Joris Gillis:

My own flavour
(I'm using it right now to format Latin text extracts with commentaries)

Do you have the direct link to the specs of openoffice xml or is this intuitive when I just look at it?

Thanks

Thomas

 

[Joris Gillis]

My own flavour

Do you have the direct link to the specs of openoffice xml or is this intuitive when I just look at it?

It is intuitive AND I'll give you some links
http://books.evc-cit.info/ch01.php is a good intro http://xml.openoffice.org/xml_specification.pdf is a specification

regards,

 

[Thomas Sommer]

Thanks

 

[Andrew Tyson]

Allan Shearer wrote:

do is 'long document', e.g., 100-1000s of pages with all the normal long document stuff you'd expect (images, tables, index, TOC, etc....).

<snip>

We use FOP ( http://xml.apache.org/fop ) to translate an XSL-FO document to PDF. It has the nice feature of supporting embedded SVG based graphics. You would just create an appropriate XSL-T to transform you XML raw data to the XSL-FO marked up version. FOP is Java based so you will need a JRE on the machine.

The nice thing about XSL-FO is that it is a W3C spec, so it's supported by a number of vendors.

HTH,
AT

 

[Allan Shearer]

Thanks to everyone for your responses. Very enlightening ... and MUCH more responsive than the same question I'd asked in the microsoft newsgroup.<sigh> I'm sure they're swell people as well ... but ... well, no I won't go there. I'll just THANK you all for responding.

Just today I was reading about FrameMaker SGML and noticed (perhaps this is old info?) that it cannot import XML, but can export it. Anyone know if this is still the case?

Kinda the reverse of what Ventura does ... it can import it (for the purpose of getting it to print) but cannot export it (which, if just fine by me). Mind you, I would *like* it to export it ... "round-trip" would be nice. Ok, ok ... that would be my cake AND eating it too, eh?!

I'm very much Windows based - but am still interested in what everyone is doing. Java - well, that's cross-platform (or maybe better put, 'platform-independant') as well as the other Apaphe apps. Hmm ... all very interesting. Brings me back a bit when I was working at a 'dot-com' and did 1/2 my work on Linux systems. Also did a lot of Java stuff at Espial. But alas - on my own, I crawled back into my hole ... 'Windows'. But, I do own a Mac ... and have an extra computer on hand should I ever dare to load-up Linux again (and pretend I know my way around it when my wife peeks over my shoulder!).

Thanks again for all your input. Keep it coming (for any/all others interested in participating here). I hope to learn more and more about this XML world. I admit it ... I've been 'bit' by the bug. W-a-y cool stuff.

Thanks

Yours,

Allan