[OT?] Maven Docbook to Powerpoint or DocBook Slides?

[Grant Ingersoll]

Sorry if this is off topic...

Anyone have any experience generating either power point of PDF
"slides" from Docbook?

Here's what I'm thinking:
Each section is a slide with a title and then a list of bullet points
and/or images, etc.

Can the Maven plugin help me do this? Or is it just a matter of
getting PDF generation right?

Thanks,
Grant

[Wilfred Springer]

Interesting question. I never actually gave it a try. In fact, whenever I used the slides scheme, I used it for my browser only. (And I don't recall Norman ever using it for anything else.) Is there actually a FO output generating version of the stylesheets for DocBook? [....checking....] 

It turns out there is something like that. By the looks of that, I would say there's gotta be a way to make it work. It would however require extending the current scheme of goals with something like docbkx:generate-slides-pdf - which sounds way too long - or something similar.

Tempted to give it a try....

2009/2/16 Grant Ingersoll <grant.i...@gmail.com>

[Mimil Mimil]

Hello,

did you have a look at docbook slide format which is an extension of regular docbook xsl stylesheets? (http://me.in-berlin.de/~miwie/presentations/html/dbslides.html ?)

Wilfred, this way it would be easy to define a new goal? And it is up to the user to write an xslt to transform its docbook sources (article, book ...) to slide sources.

Regards,
Cédric,

[Grant Ingersoll]

I notice there is a XSLT put out by someone generating Apple Keynote.  I'd love to see one for PowerPoint too.

[Grant Ingersoll]

Following up a bit late...

In looking at the DB Slides stuff, it doesn't really seem to be all that active, plus it makes it sound like it is a "simplified" version of DB, but in reality, it introduces new tags, so it requires stuff beyond just DB.  What I decided to do, instead, was just create a regular DB file with simple itemized lists in a para tag, such as:

<sect2 id="my.id">

      <title id="my.id.title">Title</title>

      <para>

        <itemizedlist>

          <listitem>

            <para>Blah</para>

          </listitem>

          <listitem>

            <para>Blah</para>

          </listitem>

          <listitem>

            <para>Blah</para>

          </listitem>

        </itemizedlist>

      </para>

    </sect2>

This works pretty well, and will also let me generate both a (training) manual and slides, I think.  Both in HTML and in PDF.  Then, it is trivial to style.

The main sticking point I have right now is that I want to generate one PDF page per section.  Anyone have experience with doing something like this?  Is that possible through a FO customization?  I realize this might be off topic, but it seems like people here may have experience doing something like this.  Of course, the answer may be I'm going down a path that leads to me recreating the slides stuff, but I hope not.

WDYT?

Thanks,

Grant

On Feb 17, 2009, at 5:11 AM, Mimil Mimil wrote:

[Grant Ingersoll]

Attempting to answer my own question, it seems like I could create a foCustomization containing:

<?xml version='1.0'?>

<xsl:stylesheet

    xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">

<xsl:import href="urn:docbkx:stylesheet"/>

  <xsl:template match="sect1">

   <fo:block break-after='page'/>

 </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template match="sect2">

   <fo:block break-after='page'/>

 </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

However, when I do this, the plugin says:

Error on line 23 column 34 of file:[PATH TO FILE]/maven/fo-customization.xslt:

  Error reported by XML parser: The prefix "fo" for element "fo:block" is not bound.

Do I need to escape it?  I arrived at this potential solution via: http://sagehill.net/docbookxsl/PageBreaking.html and it seems like it should work for my needs, except the error above.

-Grant

[Grant Ingersoll]

And, to further answer my question, escaping the <fo:block seems to work, now just need to fine tune it.

[Grant Ingersoll]

Alas, though, it still doesn't produce what I want.  

Ultimately, I want a docbook file that I can do the following:

1. Easily produce an outline of a training course - This really just means the titles of all the sections, as generated by the TOC part of the stylesheets

2. Easily produce a slide deck from class.  (Ideally, Powerpoint, but PDF is good enough).  In my case, the content of a sect1 or sect2 represents a single slide.  See [1] below.

3. Easily produce a manual (slides + notes)

4. HTML for online viewing

5. PDF for distribution

[1] For sect1 and sect2, some sect1 will have content in a <para> tag, so I may have:

<sect1>

<title>Title</title>

<para>

<itemizedList>...</itemizedList>

</para>

<sect2>

  <title>Sect 2 Title</title>

  <para>

<itemizedList>...</itemizedList>

</para>

</sect2>

</sect1>

Does this seem doable?

[Grant Ingersoll]

OK, just to follow up with how I solved this:

On Mar 2, 2009, at 7:03 PM, Grant Ingersoll wrote:

> Alas, though, it still doesn't produce what I want.
>
> Ultimately, I want a docbook file that I can do the following:
> 1. Easily produce an outline of a training course - This really just
> means the titles of all the sections, as generated by the TOC part
> of the stylesheets

This is easy using traditional <book> sections, etc. and then I have
an XSLT that just outputs the TOC. Easy-peasy.

> 2. Easily produce a slide deck from class. (Ideally, Powerpoint,
> but PDF is good enough). In my case, the content of a sect1 or
> sect2 represents a single slide. See [1] below.

OK, this was a bit trickier, esp. when it came to PDF generation. I
did as in [1] below, but I had to add in hard page break processing
instructions and handle them in my fo-customization. See http://www.sagehill.net/docbookxsl/PageBreaking.html#HardPageBreaks

This works great, and I can now make a "slide" anywhere I want while
still maintaining the hierarchy, etc..

> 3. Easily produce a manual (slides + notes)

This is handled through a fo-customization

> 4. HTML for online viewing

This is handled through a html-customization

> 5. PDF for distribution

See #2 & #3

>
>
> [1] For sect1 and sect2, some sect1 will have content in a <para>
> tag, so I may have:
> <sect1>
> <title>Title</title>
> <para>
> <itemizedList>...</itemizedList>
> </para>
> <sect2>
> <title>Sect 2 Title</title>
> <para>
> <itemizedList>...</itemizedList>
> </para>
> </sect2>
> </sect1>
>

I'm now pretty darn happy with it all. I'd still love to be able to
output PPT, but I can live w/ PDF.

I think the added benefit of all this is I also have the flexibility
to output more in depth manuals, too, all from the same source.

Cheers,
Grant

[Mimil Mimil]

Hello,

Did you have a look at http://open.comsultia.com/docbook2odf/ stylesheets? I never (yet) found the time to test them and why not include them in our tool.
Is OpenOffice an acceptable output for you?

Cedric,

[Grant Ingersoll]

On Mar 11, 2009, at 5:08 PM, Mimil Mimil wrote:

Hello,

Did you have a look at http://open.comsultia.com/docbook2odf/ stylesheets? I never (yet) found the time to test them and why not include them in our tool.
Is OpenOffice an acceptable output for you?

I did, recently, come across that and it would be cool to support in the tool.  It even looks like it is maintained, which is seems to be a feat in and of itself in DB land these days (most websites appear to be circa 2005).

Having generic ways of plugging in any XSLT of this nature would be a great addition to the tool.  The tool is pretty much a black box to me at this point, but if someone can point at how to go about this, then maybe someone will pick it up and contribute it.

-Grant

[Mimil Mimil]

Hello,

The plugin is working very well, we just need to refactor a little the way we depends on XSL stylesheets, I think it will be done in further releases because it is the last thing that need to be done in my point of view.
As for now I don't know how to do it well but thank you for your support, I hope the light will come =)
Follow the mailing and do not hesitate to ask questions.

Regards,
Cédric,