Re: High level layout API for gnome print

[Allin Cottrell <cottrell wfu edu>]

On Fri, 24 Oct 2003, Will Newton wrote:

> On Friday 24 Oct 2003 14:18, Allin Cottrell wrote:
>
> > > We need to do some reports of various things - database metrics,
> > > etc. For this it would be good to be able to do tables, centering
> > > and justification. We've looked at various layout languages like
> > > LaTeX, XSL-FO and Docbook, but none of them seem to really be
> > > flexible enough.
> >
> > XML is supremely flexible -- look more closely.
>
> I didn't mention XML, but XSL-FO. Our page layouts are designed in
> XML, and trust me, I know XML. The difficulty is rendering these
> layouts.

OK, sorry, read too quickly.  Have you considered DSSSL?

> However, in terms of actual page layout capability, we found these
> solutions were not adequate (nested tables, absolute positioning,
> intelligent page breaking, esoteric page sizes etc.). This need led
> us to look at gnome print.

I'm afraid you're barking up the wrong tree then.  AFAIK gnomeprint
does not have the "native" ability to handle this sort of thing with
any sophistication.

In my experience, TeX (with or without the extensions offered by LaTeX
and/or ConTeXt, see http://www.pragma-ade.com/ ), is really the only
option for highly sophisticated typesetting.  You can "get at" a
pretty decent subset of the capabilities of TeX/LaTeX, starting from
XML or SGML source, e.g. by using DSSSL and (pdf)jadetex.  But if that
subset is not large enough, then native TeX/LaTeX/ConTeXt is the only
way to go.

Allin Cottrell.