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The long and winding roads from DITA XML to PDF output

Thursday, August 20, 2009 — posted by Sheila Loring

DITA XML is of little use to readers unless it's converted to some kind of output. The DITA Open Toolkit (DITA OT) provides transforms and scripts that convert DITA to PDF output and a long list of other formats.

Producing PDF output from DITA content can be challenging. DITA XML is converted to an XSL-FO file, a combination of content and formatting instructions. You must know XSL-FO to customize the PDF, even just to add simple content such as headers and footers, logos, and so on.

To forgo the programming, you can choose a page layout or help authoring tool, but these tools also have pitfalls. Page layout programs have varying degrees of DITA support. Help authoring tools let you style the PDF through CSS, but you can't fine-tune page layout as you can in page layout programs.

These are just a few examples we discuss in our white paper "Creating PDF files from DITA content." Read the white paper online (in HTML or PDF).

Labels: Arbortext, DITA Open Toolkit, ePublisher, flare, FOP, FrameMaker, PDF, quark, robohelp, white papers, XEP, xmetal, XPP, XSL Formatter, xsl-fo

10:00 AM Permalink | |

 

Learn DITA and XML at your desk

Monday, August 10, 2009 — posted by Sarah O'Keefe

Labels: dita, DITA Open Toolkit, PDF, webcasts, xml

9:02 AM Permalink | |

 

DocTrain's demise and a challenge to presenters

Monday, May 18, 2009 — posted by Sarah O'Keefe

Unfortunate news in my inbox this morning:

I regret to announce that DocTrain DITA Indianapolis is cancelled. DocTrain/PUBSNET Inc is shutting down.

As a business owner, messages like this strike fear in my heart. If it could happen to them...gulp. (This might be a good time to mention that we are ALWAYS looking for projects, so send them on over, please.) My condolences to the principals at DocTrain.

Meanwhile, I'm also thinking about what we can do in place of the event. I had a couple of presentations scheduled for DocTrain DITA, and Simon Bate was planning a day-long workshop on DITA Open Toolkit configuration.

So, here's the plan. We are going to offer a couple of webinars based on the sessions we were planning to do at DocTrain DITA:

• Demystifying DITA to PDF Publishing, June 2, 11 a.m. Eastern time (Sarah O'Keefe)
  
• Hacking the DITA Open Toolkit, June 4, 11 a.m. Eastern time (Simon Bate)

Each webinar is $20. We may record the webinars and make the recordings available later, but I'm not making any promises. Registration is limited to 50 people.

Here's the challenge part: If you were scheduled to present at DocTrain DITA (or weren't but have something useful to say), please set up a webcast of your presentation. It would be ultra-cool if we could replicate the event online (I know that the first week in June was cleared on your schedule!), but let's get as much of this content as possible available. If you do not have a way to offer a webinar, let me know, and I'll work with you to host it through Scriptorium.

And here's my challenge to those of you who like to attend conferences: Please consider supporting these online events. If $20 is truly more than you can afford, contact me.

Labels: dita, DITA Open Toolkit, doctrain, PDF, presentations

4:13 PM Permalink | |

 

Presentations on features squeezed into FrameMaker 8

Thursday, November 20, 2008 — posted by Terry Smith

Just two weeks ago I was in an elementary school gymnasium working as an election official. Fourteen straight hours with no breaks for meals because officials aren't allowed to leave the polling area (which is why your ballot may have crumbs on it, sorry about that). In my precinct one candidate received only one vote more than the opponent; in another race, the difference was six votes. A very long and exciting day.

Bleary-eyed but pleased to have served my precinct, I spent the next two days attending the DITA/TechComm conference. Perhaps not the heady stuff of this year's election, but definitely worthwhile. This conference had two themes: DITA and the tools in the Adobe Technical Communication Suite (although Madcap Flare was definitely represented, too). The place where those two topics meet is FrameMaker.

I was scheduled to speak on two FrameMaker topics for the conference. FrameMaker 8 now has built-in DITA authoring capabilities, which I demonstrated. I had a few slides to keep the demonstration on track. The slides, which I have included here, are brief.



My recommendation? If you want to get the most from FrameMaker's conditional text capabilities, use structured FrameMaker and install the free ABCM product instead of using FrameMaker 8's Filter By Attribute feature.

Labels: adobe, conferences, dita, FrameMaker, PDF, presentations, xmetal

11:49 AM Permalink | |

 

My beautiful Flash movie shows up as a big gray button in FrameMaker 8

Tuesday, March 25, 2008 — posted by Terry Smith

With FrameMaker 8, you can embed Flash (.SWF) files directly into FrameMaker. From there, if you use Save As PDF to create the PDF file, then your users can play Flash movies right from the PDF. Import the Flash file, Save As PDF, and go.

Except that the result is not quite as advertised.

According to Adobe, the first frame in the Flash file appears where you insert the Flash file. Uh, no. What actually appears is a picture of a big gray arrow button like this:


The gray button is not what I expected or wanted. Frankly, the first frame of the Flash movie is often not great to show either.

So how can you set a poster for the Flash movie that will show up in print and in the PDF? The solution is not elegant, but it works:

1) Create a picture (probably a screen capture from the Flash movie) and place it on top of the embedded Flash file in FrameMaker (both are in the same anchored frame).

2) Add callouts such as "Click here to play movie" if you want. Here's a sample of a picture you might place over a Flash movie:



3) Select File > Save As PDF.

In the resulting PDF, the picture (and text, if any) that you placed on top of the Flash movie act like a big button. Click anywhere on the picture to play the Flash movie. The Flash movie comes to the front and covers the picture, so you can use any kind of picture and it won't affect how the Flash movie looks when it plays.

Here is a FrameMaker 8 sample file that shows the big-gray-arrow-button problem and the workaround to create a poster for the Flash movie. Also, here is the resulting PDF. This file was tested on Windows with FrameMaker 8.0 p273 (also known as the “Fat Tuesday patch” for its release date).

Want more? See this article by Jeff Freeman about importing Captivate Flash into Acrobat for tips that also apply when importing Flash into FrameMaker.

Labels: Acrobat, Flash, FrameMaker, PDF, SWF

12:06 PM Permalink | |

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