[REBOL] Re: pdf-maker example
From: jan:skibinski:sympatico:ca at: 3-Nov-2002 11:28
Hi Gabriele,
Have you considered combining your pdf-maker
with Gavin's xml-parser/xml-object? A good idea
what the two could do together can be found in
the iText Java PDF library
http://www.lowagie.com/iText/
One does not need to have Java installed to browse
through the excellent documentation above. All one needs
is the Acrobat reader. Of particular interest is chapter 7
and especially the piece about tagmaps, which allow
mapping of custom business tags into document-oriented tags
of the iText library. Very little effort is required to make
tagmap.xml and just few lines of java driver will drive
the tagmap and a business xml file to produce quite
decently looking PDF books. And RTF and HTML
output at the same time if one wishes to - although they
will not look as good as PDF unless one would
adjust the tagmap file to better match the RTF stuff.
The tagmap approach is not as generic as XSLT,
but consider this: you can bypass XSLT and FOP,
so instead of using three different engines you can
just stick with one. A rebol engine!
Several years ago I wrote a package "fun-pdf"
with scripts written in Ocaml, Haskell and Q
to interface to C PDF library "pdflib". Among other
things the scripts provided convenience functions
for extracting and processing pieces of external text and
image files. In hindsite, I would have done much better
if I provided a support for XML instead.
Just a food for thought,
Jan
Gabriele Santilli wrote: